Angels We Have Heard On High
by AKissAndAGunshot
Summary: In which Asuka is in the right place, at the wrong time. Some things are different, while some things remain the same.
1. Your Weapons Cannot Destroy Me

**X-X-X **

**CHAPTER 1**

 **X-X-X**

"Stupid _fucking_ emergency protocol!"

Asuka seethed as she glared at the notice board. Every single train was marked with a red _delayed_ light - including the one she had intended to be on fifteen minutes ago.

Had she been the sort of person to notice such things, she would have found it odd that the platform was utterly deserted but for a cute but mousy-looking boy with brown hair - and an oddly neat button-down shirt - at the far end. However, she was not, and thus she did not. Instead, she studiously ignored the boy, turning on her heel and marching off the platform.

The whole train station was abandoned. It hadn't exactly been busy, but now even the employees had abandoned the ticket stands and offices.

There wasn't even the sound of cicadas.

 _I get that it's a sleepy suburban town, but this is just creepy!_ Asuka picked up her pace, walking briskly across the foyer and out the main door.

The street outside was just as abandoned. One or two cars were parked, empty, on the sides of the road. The shutters were closed on every visible window, on every building. Other than herself, not a soul walked under the sun.

 _How is this possible? "Delayed due to emergency protocol"... what does that even mean? What the hell is this alleged protocol, anyway? Scheisse, am I in an evacuated zone?_

A soft beeping brought her out of her thoughts, and her head whipped around. The boy from the platform was tapping away at a pay phone just a few meters away from her - although, judging from his frustrated sigh, he wasn't getting anything useful from it.

She turned to look in the other direction, and her brow furrowed in confusion.

In the center of the street stood another human, looking almost out of place in the deserted townscape. She appeared to be a girl somewhat shorter than Asuka herself, with skin skirting the border between fashionably pale and sickly ashen, and odd azure-blue hair. She was wearing a bland school uniform and standing quite stiffly.

The loud, harsh sound of a flock of birds taking off startled the German girl. When she looked back, the apparition had vanished without a trace.

 _What the hell? Eh… maybe I just imagined it. Creepy, though._

Then the _earth_ shook.

Asuka and the brown-haired boy whipped their eyes away from their respective distractions, homing in on the pass between two mountains close by - as an immense monster, like something out of the darker side of bronze-age mythology, stepped ponderously around the mountain.

The leviathan was as tall as an office building and at least as broad at the shoulder, although its limbs were oddly spindly, almost like the legs of a spider or scorpion. Its carapace was all in black but for the hideous, birdlike white mask situated between its shoulders.

The boy yelped and stepped back, even though the monster was close to a mile away. Asuka's reaction was not as pronounced, but she still felt her her hands clench and her spine shiver as a jolt of fear run through her gut.

 _That has to be an Angel. This is really happening. The angels are here. This is what I've trained for all my life, and for all that, I'm helpless as a fucking kitten right now._

Asuka had decided to come to Tokyo-3 a week ahead of time, to familiarize herself a little with the city before she jumped back into training. If she'd known an angel was going to attack _that day,_ she would have done everything in her somewhat limited power to get Unit 02's shipment moved up as well.

 _What is NERV-J going to do? … well, they have the prototypes and a test pilot, but can they really take down an angel with half-cooked Evangelions and a sync test jockey? They need a real pilot to beat this thing, and I'm the only one in Japan right now!_

A cacophony of deep booming noises washed over the deserted town, and Asuka squinted at the giant. There were dozens of Harriers and VTOLs - tiny, at this distance - swarming around it like flies, and judging by the peppering of smoke plumes on the thing's carapace, they were bombarding it with missiles. Not a single one left so much as a mark on it.

The angel raised its hand, and a ray of white light lanced two Harriers out of the sky in one blow. It dropped its hand apparently satisfied with the demonstration.

Asuka noticed a larger aircraft, probably a fixed-wing heavy bomber, approaching on a wide flyby trajectory. At the lowest point in the shallow swoop, a _huge_ cruise missile - as long as the fuselage of a small jet aircraft - detached from the bomber's underbelly.

 _God in Heaven! I didn't think they had anything that lethal in NERV-J's arsenal. It might actually be enough to scratch the beast!_

The missile streaked towards the angel, which lifted its hand to meet it. The warhead and the angel's hand collided with a titanic explosion.

A minute later, the turbulent jetwash from the swarm of attack aircraft cleared the smoke away, and the angel stood utterly untouched.

" **Y** _O_ **U** _R_ **W** _E_ **A** _P_ **O** _N_ **S** _C_ **A** _N_ **N** _O_ **T** _D_ **E** _S_ **T** _R_ **O** _Y_ **M** _E._ "

The voice was so low and distorted it was barely intelligible, sounding more like a rockslide than a string of actual words. Asuka only heard it at all because it was significantly _louder_ than the distant explosions - and, curiously enough, was in german.

There was only one _entity_ it could have come from.

The angel glowed with an eldritch aura that Asuka could only describe as magic, and rose off the ground as if weightless. The angel floated forward in a smooth parabola with, apparently, total impunity to the ceaseless barrage of siege weaponry.

 _Is it coming towards - ?_

Asuka's reflexes cut off her own train of thought. She spun on her heel and began sprinting away from the advancing monster as fast as she could.

It wasn't fast enough.

Asuka was an athletic girl, but no human could be expected to outrun a lovecraftian monstrosity, whether or not it was flying. Before she'd even made ten steps, a careening VTOL crashed into the ground a hundred paces ahead of her - and a second later, an immense black foot slammed down on the wrecked aircraft.

The fuel tanks ignited with a searing flash and an earsplitting _boom,_ and Asuka's senses dissolved into a white blur and silence but for a faint ringing. She staggered as the blast wave hit her, and dimly felt her knees getting skinned as they hit the pavement.

The fadeout began to bleed away. The monster hadn't moved - its attention seemed focused on the aircraft, which were still intent on their futile assault.

"I - miss - are you alright, miss?" The mousy boy was kneeling beside her, offering his arm in support.

Asuka answered him with a swift punch to the kidney, and pushed herself to her feet as he slumped sideways in agony. _I don't need anyone's help! Especially not some dumb provincial boy!_

There was a screech of rubber loud enough to cut through the incessant booming of the explosions, and the foot of the monstrosity was abruptly obscured. Asuka blinked, registering a blue sports car directly in front of her.

The passenger door slammed open. "Get in!" A voice shouted over the din.

Asuka dashed forward without thinking, collapsing into the seat without ceremony. A second behind her, the backseat door opened and shut in a similar fashion.

"Shinji - and _Asuka?!"_ The woman squeaked. Finally treated to a clear view, Asuka's memory clicked: _Captain Misato Katsuragi, Operations Director of NERV-J. We've met a few times in the past._ "I was told I was picking up one kid, not two - and definitely not a pilot!"

"Well, thank me later, then," Asuka snapped back. "Because it sure as _hell_ looks like you need a trained pilot right now!"

"Don't get ahead of yourself. The UN hasn't authorized NERV to deploy Eva in combat yet." Misato maintained a surprisingly cool tone, for someone hightailing it out of a war zone with the pedal on the floor. "Hey, Shinji! You _are_ Ikari Shinji, right? You were the one I was sent to retrieve."

 _Shinji… Ikari? It can't be the same Ikari as…_

"Oh - um, yes," the boy - Shinji - managed. "Father just told me to come to Tokyo-3. I don't know anything more about any of this."

"Your father is the Supreme Commander of NERV, Shinji," Misato replied. _Well god damn, it's the same Ikari all right._ "Here. This'll explain a lot. It also contains your ID card."

The purple-haired woman tossed Shinji a package that Asuka was familiar with - a NERV new employee package, complete with a 'comprehensive' rundown of what the organization did and stood for.

" _Anyway,"_ Asuka hissed, annoyed at the foppish boy's presence. "If the UN hasn't authorized Eva, what do they expect to field instead? They have nothing that'll scratch an AT field, not even a weak one!"

"I have a hunch as to what," Misato replied. "But I don't think they'll use it for another -"

Her eyes flickered to the side, looking back over the mountain they'd successfully circumnavigated - where the angel itself was hidden, but the attack plane formations could be seen clear as day. Or at least, _could_ _have been_ seen clear as day, until they began scattering - leaving only a single high-altitude heavy bomber, just like before.

"I was wrong!" Misato stomped on the brakes and switched off the car at the same moment, and Asuka nearly choked on her seatbelt as the momentum viciously threw her forward. "They're going to use an N2 bomb, right now! _Stay down!"_

Asuka's blood turned to ice.

 _N2 bomb. Scheisse, their last resort before Eva is a gottverdammt nuclear airstrike. I really wish that didn't make as much sense as it does._

The red-haired pilot frantically punched her seatbelt, and barely even registered annoyance when Misato grabbed her collar and yanked her flat onto the seat. Shinji hadn't had his seatbelt fastened in the first place, and the hard stop had driven him painfully into the back of Asuka's seat; he opted to simply stay on the floor of the car and curl into a ball.

The light was what came first - like a blink of the eye of god, a flash of unimaginable brilliance that far outshone the sun. None of the car's occupants were even looking in that direction - and yet they saw the world flicker into ultra-contrast black and white as the tip of the fireball flashed just over the peak of the mountain.

 _Well, we just got hit with hard X-rays,_ Asuka thought fuzzily. _I sure hope it wasn't a dangerous dose. We're behind a decent-sized mountain and a steel car, right? Are these windows radiation proofed?_

An immense plume of glowing orange smoke and dust shot skyward in the wake of the initial fireball, already mushrooming as it gained altitude.

Then the shockwave hit.

Later, Asuka would describe it as "like having your head wedged between the barrels of two firing Howitzers, but louder." In truth, the word _loud_ didn't do it justice. It was literally a solid, physical wall of sound, picking the car up and bodily throwing it sideways by sheer force of air compression. The impact was like a sheet of lead pressing down on her body, and alongside the bruises from being tossed about inside the car, she felt a sharp stinging in her left ear that was almost certainly a ruptured eardrum.

Asuka was familiar with the concept of superweapons - after all, she was trained to pilot one. But the titanic biomachines known as _Evangelion_ were, as they were often described, stolen from the domain of God. Built of twisted flesh and animated by science that bordered on sorcery, they were distant and arcane things even to the very people who built and piloted them. The destruction she'd just witnessed, on the other hand, was purely from the hands of man: brutal, dirty, archaic, and viciously in-your-face with its results. A relatively simple collision of fissile materials in the presence of a little metallic lithium, and one could create an explosion comparable to twenty-five _million_ tons of trinitrotoluene.

It would have been a humbling thought, had Asuka not been allergic to humility.

The car had stopped rolling in a precarious position, balanced uneasily on its side. Asuka shook her head before she realized Misato was talking to her.

"What?" She said, turning her good ear towards the captain. "Say all that again."

Misato huffed. "I said, let's see if we can crawl out and right the car."

 **X-X-X **

They'd 'requisitioned' a bank of batteries from an auto shop to keep the car's battered engine running, since its internal power source had been destroyed by the EMP. The shop had been evacuated, so Misato hadn't had anyone to show her NERV credentials to; she'd deemed it worth breaking procedure and had taken the batteries anyway. Shinji had complained, stating that it wasn't okay to take them.

 _I think I'm beginning to see what kind of a kid this Ikari is._

"So," Misato said in a clipped voice. "Care to tell me why NERV-G sent the second child a full seven days ahead of schedule and _without_ warning us?"

Asuka folded her arms. "No," she said sulkily.

"Watch it, _Warrant Officer Soryu."_ Asuka cringed - being addressed by rank, rather than 'pilot,' usually meant she was in deeper trouble than usual. "Care to run that by me again?"

"… I just wanted to see the place before the whole settling-in procedure, okay?" The German girl scowled. "You _know_ how long and annoying that'll be. Paperwork, sync and activation tests, sitting in waiting rooms. It's _boooooring._ I wanted some time to get used to Tokyo first."

"Tokyo-3 to you - the original Tokyo was nowhere near Hakone. And look how well your little plan turned out!" Misato clenched her teeth. "If you'd been killed back there, we'd have been down by fifty percent of our primary military strength just like _that!"_

"Look, if I'd known an _Angel_ was going to pick today, I'd have waited!"

"Uh. Misato-san?"

" _What?!"_ Asuka and Misato yelled in unison. Shinji cringed.

"It's just that, uh, the, I mean your, your phone is ringing."

Misato snapped her phone up to her ear with what had to be record speeds, sliding the 'answer' pattern as she did so. "What?!" She yelled.

" _Wow, someone's in a good mood."_ The phone was not on speaker mode, but it was still more than loud enough for Asuka to pick up the sound if she angled her head correctly. " _I was just calling to check on your progress. Do you have the boy yet?"_

"Oh, I have Shinji," Misato snapped, her voice lowering to a carefully restrained growl. "As well as… well, you'll see. Have a car-carrier express train ready for us, will you?"

" _I don't like your idea of surprises, Misato. What are you hiding?"_

"Nothing, nothing!" Misato hastily replied. "Just dispatch the train, okay?"

" _Oh, it's already done. Getting you back here is extremely high on the Commander's priority list right now."_ There was a pause. " _The nuke cut it up a bit, set it back some, but ultimately didn't do any lasting damage. Sachiel's already close to being ready to attack again - and the UN has officially authorized the Commander to deploy Eva. We need an operations director down here ASAP."_

"You aren't planning on deploying _Rei_ , are you?" Misato sounded flabbergasted. "She's in no shape to pilot! And besides, you'd be putting her in a unit she barely knows!"

 _Rei? Must be the test pilot… so she's injured, huh? That's what happens when you let amateurs into the entry plug, I guess._

" _Hopefully, we won't have to, but if it comes to that we'll do it. Rei's safety, or even survival, comes second to the survival of the human race."_

Misato gritted her teeth. "That's cold, Ritsuko. You're talking about a child here."

" _Of course it's cold, and I'm talking about a soldier. Soldiers get ordered to their deaths all the time."_

Asuka decided she'd heard enough, and poked Misato in the ribs. "Hey," she hissed. "I'm a pilot, and I've gotta be a better one than this Rei of yours. Just deploy me instead."

Misato's eyes narrowed as she glanced at Asuka, than back to the road. Her expression was unreadable.

"Ritsuko, if you haven't done it already, stand by on waking Rei up. It's just possible there's another option on hand."

" _Oh, Rei's still sleeping like a baby, and on the Commander's orders no less. He has an idea that's… well, hardly pleasant, but we're out of pleasant options. Nice to know you have a backup scheme too; I can't wait to tell you why it won't work."_

"What?!" Misato hissed back. "You don't even know what it is! What makes you so sure it won't work?"

" _Because it's you who came up with it, of course. Now step on it! Sachiel isn't going to wait up for our sakes!"_

 **X-X-X **

The train had dropped them off in a parking garage. The elevator into the complex had borne the NERV logo and motto in bold lettering on the door, and the interior had been lit by red light.

 _I'll give that to NERV-J - they know how to set the tone of the place. It feels appropriate, for the epicenter of humanity's only hope._

That had been more than half an hour ago.

"Are you _sure_ we aren't lost?" Shinji whined from behind them. "I'm almost certain we've passed over this… conveyor belt… before, at least once."

"I'm actually gonna side with the wimp on this one," Asuka grumbled. "This all looks pretty familiar."

"They make these systems to be used!" Misato loudly proclaimed, not meeting either child's eyes as she boldly stepped off the conveyor belt. Asuka and Shinji had to scramble to catch up with her, though Asuka privately suspected that Misato had stepped off more or less at random.

"Look, there's a fucking _Angel_ attacking us," Asuka snapped back, as she chased Misato up to the next set of doors. "I don't think we have time to be wasting!"

The steel plates hissed open.

"Funny you should say that…" The blonde-haired woman adjusted the angle of her gaze, meeting Asuka's eyes. "... Pilot Soryu."

Asuka stiffened, her back reflexively straightening to something that a blind and intoxicated officer might have called 'standing at attention.' The second child had always had a problem with respecting authority, but Dr. Ritsuko Akagi bypassed respect and went straight to _fear._ While the woman had never actually physically harmed Asuka, the pilot was well aware that their families had bad blood between them - and Ritsuko's cold, scalpel-like intellect terrified people who she _didn't_ have a grudge against.

"How expedient of you to join us, Asuka," the doctor murmured. Somehow, she managed to remain intimidating while dressed in an immaculate lab coat hastily draped over a one-piece swimsuit. "It's truly a shame your red beast wasn't infected with the same impatience. I wouldn't have even called it bothersome, this time."

Asuka bristled at the slight. "Hey, Misato already chewed me out for that," she bit back. "And I'm _off duty_ until Moloch - I mean, Unit Two - lands in New Yokosuka, so I can be wherever the hell I please."

"At this distance, you're too far to constitute green standby. So in fact, you're in dereliction of duty, and your Evangelion is currently an expensive dead weight with no defensive capabilities in an emergency." Ritsuko looked up at Misato, apparently done with the German pilot. "Misa- ahem. Captain Katsuragi, I see your map-reading skills are as keen as ever. Still, you managed to retrieve Shinji at least; thanks for that. Follow me."

Misato blinked, but fell into step beside Ritsuko. "Where?"

"Where else? Holding cage one." Ritsuko's strides were sharp and quick.

 **X-X-X **

The room they'd stepped into was dark, and surprisingly cold - barely warmer than a walk-in refrigerator. If the echo was any indication, the room was very large.

The hallways had been floored in polished concrete. An abrupt change in the cadence of their footfalls suggested they were now walking on metal.

 _Cage one. If this isn't where the concept model is being held, I'll eat my clips._

"There's no need for such theatrics, Commander," Ritsuko called into the darkness. "Turn the lights on already."

Many meters overhead, dozens of fluorescent light fixtures snapped on. Shinji shrieked, leaping backwards and colliding with Misato - almost throwing the captain off balance. Asuka suppressed a chuckle at his reaction.

 _What a wimp. Okay, I yelped when I first met Moloch, but I didn't jump half a mile like that._

She turned her eyes to the beast, now plainly visible in the lit cage. Only the head and shoulders were visible - the walkway was actually a bridge, suspended just above the containment coolant that the unit was submerged in - but the head was the main distinctive feature of any given unit anyway.

 _So this is Evangelion Unit One… she doesn't look any smaller than Moloch, so she must be close to as strong, but I have to wonder how she handles._ Asuka examined the sleeping giant critically, noting the red ID markings: the word ISHTAR printed in comparatively tiny Latin lettering just above the large '01' on the gorget. _Needs more red paint than just that, but she's a pretty scary monster as she is. Nice touch, that horn. Yeah, I can work with that._

"Shinji." A man's voice echoed through the cage, deep and devoid of emotion.

 _Shinji? Why would anyone be talking to that - oh. It's the Commander himself. I guess that's why._

There was an observation deck set in the ceiling just above the eva's head. The figure standing there was lit from behind, casting his features into shadow but for a pair of orange sunglasses.

No one there needed to see his face anyway. One could not mistake the presence of Gendo Ikari, the Commander of NERV's Japan branch and Supreme Commander of NERV worldwide.

"… Father," came the very, _very_ hesitant reply.

 _Is there some kind of history between them? This isn't exactly the warmest reunion I've ever seen._

Gendo did not answer, however, and the silence was immediately filled by Shinji's surprised squeak as Ritsuko swiftly pinned two A10 interface nodes onto his hair and produced a tiny handheld walkie-talkie. "Maya, echo Ishtar's interface headset and tell me how long it'll take to compile an uplink driver for the subject."

The clips beeped, and a minute later, the walkie-talkie crackled. " _Subject's patterns are surprisingly close to Rei's, so I think I can reuse a lot of the basic data files; I can have a driver ready in less than half an hour if I start now. Is this a new pilot, Senpai?"_

"Affirmative, Maya. Do you have the complete echo scan?"

" _Yes, Senpai. It's compiling now."_

"Good. Hang on." Shinji squeaked again as Ritsuko swatted his hands away from the pins, where he'd been about to undo them himself; she pulled them off, whistled loudly, and tossed them to Asuka. The girl barely reacted in time.

"Put those on, Pilot," she said. "And yes, I'm sure it pains you, but you _will_ have to take off Moloch's clips for this."

 _Screw you too, bitch._ Asuka huffed quietly, but reached up to remove the red A10-adapted clips from her two ponytails. Her hair immediately fell into her face, and she cursed quietly in German as she slid the white pins into the appropriate places on her hair.

"Maya, echo again and give me a new estimate."

A brief silence, and then - " _I'm sorry, Senpai… this one's nothing like the other. I can't use any of the established presets; it's going to have to be built from scratch. It could be hours."_

 _Gottverdammt! I was born to pilot these beasts, and now at the moment of truth we don't have the fucking time to get one ready for me?! Doesn't that just fucking figure!_

"Thank you, Maya. Queue that task to start after you're done with the first compile. Ritsuko out." The doctor pocketed the walkie-talkie, then arched her eyebrow at Misato. "Looks like I win again. Your idea won't work. Mine will. How many drinks do you owe me now?"

Misato didn't answer. Slowly, she looked at Shinji, then back to Ritsuko.

"Yes," Ritsuko said shortly, her tone flat.

"No!" Misato looked horrified. "He's never even _seen_ an Eva before today - assuming he can even synchronize enough to move it, _which I doubt,_ Sachiel will rip him apart!"

"There can be no argument on this." The cold, harsh voice echoed from the observation deck once more. "Shinji. As the third viable child identified by the Marduk Institute, you will pilot Evangelion Unit One."

Shinji blinked, shook his head, and then lifted his shoulders. "That's _it?"_ He said, his voice cracking. " _This_ is why you called me here?"

 _Whiny prick's acting like it isn't a privilege to pilot Eva,_ Asuka grumbled to herself. _This is the Third Child, huh? Scheisse, that means I'm gonna have to work with him from now on…_

"I summoned you because I needed you, Shinji," Gendo said, his voice calm. "Now, above us stands an angel poised to destroy all mankind. No one else can stop it; you can."

"No! No, I can't!" Shinji yelled back. "I don't know anything about this - like Misato said, I've never even _seen_ one of these before!"

"You will be instructed."

Shinji straightened his back. "No!" He said, his voice edged with bitter petulance. "I'm not doing it."

"We have no time for this, Shinji." Gendo's voice betrayed no trace of emotion. "Get in the entry plug or go _away._ If you're determined not to be useful, I'll not have you getting in the way of the launch crews."

Shinji looked like he'd been slapped in the face, and he sagged, his gaze coming to rest on the floor. He gave no sign of responding.

The bridge shuddered slightly, and the adults present looked towards the roof. "It must have sensed our location," Gendo murmured, his voice amplified by the observation deck speakers.

"Just get in the _fucking_ Eva, _arschgesicht,"_ Asuka hissed, laying deliberate emphasis on both the German and English curses. "I'm not gonna die on the sidelines because you lost your _nerve._ Do it, or I'll have you _begging_ for the Angel to vaporize you by the time I'm done."

Shinji drew back from Asuka's glare, but didn't answer; he still made no move towards the upper bridge.

The cage shook again. Ripples spread over the red liquid.

Gendo reached into his pocket, pulling out his phone. "Fuyutsuki? … yes. I need you to wake up Rei and have her brought to Holding Cage One." A pause. "She's not dead, or comatose, is she? … then she'll do. We're out of other options."

Beside Asuka, Shinji began muttering. "I knew it," he whispered. "I knew I wasn't needed after all."

Ritsuko pulled out her walkie-talkie and switched the channel. "Control, reconfigure Unit One for the First Child. Prepare and stand by for a solo scramble from the emergency urban exits."

The doors at the other end of the bridge opened, and Asuka turned. _Let's see what this first child is all about -_

And then she blinked in momentary confusion. Instead of a teenager in a plugsuit, there were two adult figures in medical outfits pushing a gurney.

 _Herr im Himmel… Misato implied she was injured, but I didn't realize she meant knocking on death's door!_

A thick band of bandages pressed dressings against multiple vicious skull injuries - _blue hair, I swear there's something familiar about that -_ and another bandage entirely concealed the pilot's left eye. Her right arm was bandaged; her left was in a cast from the wrist almost to the shoulder.

She was wearing a barely recognizable plugsuit - it was _loose,_ it lacked sleeves, and bore the words _Emergency Medical Support Suit_ where most plugsuits would have their signature unit number. Such a thing was a standard backup kept in every entry plug, under the hope that it would never be needed. This one was even less standard: the material over the pilot's abdomen and the entire left leg had been roughly cut away, replaced with even more bandages. Almost every dressing bore distressingly crimson stains.

The nurses stepped back, retreating out of the cage and away from secrets far above their pay grade. The pilot - Rei - was left alone on the gurney.

"Rei," Gendo said, his voice cold as ever. "The backup plan has fallen through. It is now on you to pilot Unit One."

Somehow, Rei pushed herself up on her bandaged elbow. "Yes, Commander," she replied, her voice soft and almost mechanical despite her labored breathing. "Unit… Unit One is less responsive to me, and it… it lacks the hardware to compensate. I cannot g-, guarantee, a satisfactory sync score."

 _Is this dummkopf suicidal, or just totally prepared to die for humanity?_ Asuka could only stare as Rei rolled herself over one-handed and made to swing her single uninjured leg off the gurney. _On one hand, I gotta respect that level of sheer grit, but on the other, in that state the sync stress will squeeze her brain out of her skull through the top of her spine!_

"Noted," Gendo replied. "Major, help Rei up to -"

 _Boom._

" _Sachiel's assault has breached the geofront!"_ The PA system crackled. " _Estimating T minus 5 minutes until the breach is large enough for it to enter!"_

If the last series of assaults had elicited tremors, this one qualified as a _quake._ The bridge shivered and twisted underfoot; Misato and Ritsuko stumbled, while Shinji fell. There was a series of loud crashing noises and splashes as fluorescent light ballasts tore loose and fell.

At the peak of the cascade, there was a sudden and _loud_ creaking, then an echoing boom - both with a decidedly metallic cadence. The bridge shook even harder, and the medical gurney jostled - then tipped outright.

 _Scheisse! If she falls, she'll probably flatline right there!_

Asuka had no problems standing on the misbehaved bridge - she'd trained for nearly a decade to pilot Eva, and that included all appropriate agility practice. As the gurney and its helpless passenger fell, Asuka was already dashing forwards.

 _She doesn't weigh much,_ was Asuka's first thought. While the girl had a broader skeleton than Asuka herself, she was underweight almost to the point of emaciation. _She's cold, too, really cold. If she wasn't breathing I'd say she was dead already._

The lights flickered, and there was the sound of rushing liquid behind her. Asuka ignored the distraction, shifting her arm behind Rei's head in an effort to prevent spinal stress as she put her down.

Rei wasn't a cooperative patient, however, and she twisted in Asuka's grip - whether a misguided attempt to get to her feet, or simply twitching from the pain of her injuries, Asuka couldn't say. She coughed as she did so, and a trickle of fresh blood made its way down from the corner of her mouth.

Finally, the injured pilot's good eye snapped open - lacking focus, her gaze jittered aimlessly for a minute before settling on Asuka.

 _Oh, fuck me! That's creepy!_ Asuka fought the urge to drop the other pilot and scramble away. _I thought maybe they were reddish-brown or albino pink, and it was just a trick of the light - but fuck, nope, red as the fucking blood on her bandages! How does that even happen?!_

Rei squirmed again, and Asuka gritted her teeth. "Stay down, _arschloch,"_ she snarled. "If you're so fucking determined to bleed out, at least let me get you back on the fucking gurney before you do it."

Moving with exaggerated caution, Asuka lowered Rei to the floor and slid her arms out from under her - with a parting push on her shoulder, warning the wounded pilot not to try to get up again.

As she stood, she glanced back at Shinji - and did a double take.

Unit 01's colossal arm was curled neatly around the umbilical bridge, and her armored hand - large enough to crush a sizeable _car_ in its grip - was hanging in the air directly above Shinji. The wreckage of a former lighting fixture lay around him, none of it within a meter of where he stood. Misato and Ritsuko were staring, apparently dumbstruck.

The vambrace of the exposed arm dripped coolant, and had numerous torn cables and pipes still attached to the maintenance nodes. Most damning of all, the entire left wall of the room now had a rectangular hole with torn edges in it where it had once closed around a huge purple pauldron wing.

 _Her arm was in the cage clamp. I've seen Evas twitch in their sleep, but this one just ripped free of a couple thousand tonnes of restraining steel - and all just to shield that wimp from some falling glass? Mein Gott, Ishtar, what_ _are_ _you?_

There was a soft coughing noise behind her. _Oh, that's right. I don't have time to gape, because I'm apparently the only soldier in the room who knows that you fucking pick a teammate up when they fall._

The gurney was steel, and heavy as all hell. Asuka braced herself carefully, and still came close to straining a leg muscle lifting it, but eventually it tipped back over and landed right-side up.

Then she turned back to Rei, who was once again attempting unsuccessfully to stand. _Christ, it's like babysitting a child._ The German slid her arms under the other girl's shoulders and knees before she could sit up and easily lifted her, depositing her as gently as possible onto the gurney.

Rei coughed, twitching her right arm towards Asuka. "P… please wheel me up to… the upper bridge," she whispered. Her voice gurgled on every hard syllable, and the blood coming from her mouth wasn't stopping. "A tech will lift me into the, the plug."

" _Fuck_ no," Asuka bit back. "I don't even care if you're our last hope. Pilot if you want to, no skin off my nose; but I'm not going to be complicit in _assisted suicide."_

To the Eva's left, Ritsuko and Misato seemed exceedingly distracted by Unit 01's spontaneous movement - they were muttering frantically to each other, ignoring their charge. _Scheisse, both of the hags at once. Shinji must be having a fun time._ Rei twisted onto her side yet again, and Asuka pushed her right back down onto the gurney. _Exactly like babysitting a child, right down to the strange and pointless games…_

Abruptly, Shinji's voice broke through the hushed murmurs. "You'd really make her… you'd really do that? To a girl in her condition?!"

Asuka turned, briefly startled by Shinji's outburst. The floor shook again - _how much time is left? Four minutes? Three?_

"Fine! You - you fucking win, father. If it's her or me, I'll do it."

Gendo did not smile, or indeed visibly react at all. "Very well," he said, his tone unchanged. "Captain, Doctor, make the necessary arrangements."

Ritsuko's comm device appeared again. "Maya, is the interface driver complete?"

" _Finished less than ten seconds ago, Senpai - but - aren't we scrambling Rei?"_

"Sorry, there was a bit of confusion on our end. The mission pilot has been confirmed as the Third Child. Run with the driver you compiled."

Misato produced her own radio unit - this one larger and clearly more military in design. "Control!" She barked. "You have one hundred and eighty seconds to get Ishtar topside! _Move!"_

A loud klaxon began to blare, and a number of technicians rushed onto the upper bridge situated behind the Evangelion's head. With a series of shuddering _booms_ and rushing noises, the lake of coolant under the umbilical bridge began to lower, exposing the upper portions of the Eva's cuirass.

Ritsuko spun on her heel and made quick strides towards the right exit door, while Misato followed at a slower pace, taking an earbud and wire from her pocket and putting it in.

"Hey!" Asuka yelled after them. "Are you just gonna leave Rei here? She can't be on the umbilical equipment when it undocks!"

Misato nodded, then spoke into the wire - although she gave no other response before walking away. Whatever she said was lost in the noise of the klaxon, but a moment later, the PA system cut in even louder: " _Emergency medical personnel to Holding Cage One, maximum priority. Repeat: emergency medical personnel to Holding Cage One, maximum priority."_

 _One helpless dummkopf dealt with, one more to go._ Asuka strode over to Shinji, who was looking more than a little panicked.

"There's - there's no time left," he stammered, his face white. "I don't know - I don't know what to do."

Asuka sighed, and reached up to her own thoroughly messed-up hair. She swiftly pulled the white nerve interfaces off and reached up to Shinji's forehead, ignoring his startled yelp as she pinned them into his hair.

"You need those on, and you obviously can't be trusted to place them correctly. Get used to them." She gritted her teeth at the cowering terror in his expression. "You'll have to do without a plugsuit. Hope you don't mind your clothes getting a little orange and weird-smelling."

S _omeone needs a pep talk from the squad leader. Which clearly means me, because the other two pilots here couldn't lead a squad out of a gottverdammt paper bag - and frankly, the Fifth Child ain't exactly perfect for it either._

"Hey." Asuka grabbed Shinji's shoulder in a vice grip, forcing him to look her in the eyes. Her own expression was probably viciously annoyed, but she forged ahead anyway. "Look, just get in the entry plug and… fuck… and reach out to her. Okay? That's all it is, all there is to piloting. Everything else is just so much detail. Got it?"

Shinji nodded dumbly.

" _T minus 120 seconds to launch! Clear the Holding Cage! Third Child, to the entry dock!"_

"Good." Asuka looked up; behind the Eva, the cage crane was moving an entry plug into docking position. "Looks like your chariot awaits. Get up there and show Misato you aren't as spineless as you look, yeah?"

 **X-X-X **

In his seat at the highest point in the control center, Gendo observed his domain through orange-tinted glasses.

"No seraphim," Fuyutsuki murmured, almost optimistically. "Perhaps our predictions were wrong."

"Sachiel is one of the weakest." Gendo continued staring ahead. "That may simply be beyond its power."

"It's fortunate for your son," the L.C. replied. "He's already adjusted to so much today. He hardly needs more."

"Mm."

Fuyutsuki said nothing more, and Gendo returned to brooding.

 _I suppose it is a shame I had to force Shinji into piloting Unit One. He is at risk now… and worse, I will have need of him on an ongoing basis. But no other option was viable. Even the expedience of the German pilot's arrival fell short._

 _Still, if I must make use of him, he will do. I am more than accustomed to making do with suboptimal tools._

On the control bridge below, Lt. Aoba swiped a hand over his controls - and the main hologram shifted into a 3d model of the city. A portion of the big screen on the back wall turned into a digital timer with a _distressingly_ short amount of time on it.

"T minus ten seconds to launch! Open all route shutters!"

The door at the back of the room slid open. Doctor Akagi and Captain Katsuragi strode into the control room, faster than Gendo had ever seen them walk before. Ritsuko was chattering into her walkie-talkie, and Misato into her earbud wire - both likely walking Shinji through the final stage of the activation process. A moment later, the second child - _Soryu, if I recall correctly -_ followed.

"Five! Four! Three! Two! One!"

Misato straightened. "Evangelion Unit One - launch!"

Gendo slid a tiny yellow tablet from his pocket and, almost idly, popped it into his mouth.

 **X-X-X **

"Pilot… um… Soryu, please leave the control room."

" _Mach es dir selber,"_ Asuka snapped, her voice downright acidic. Her eyes were glued to the big screen.

 _41.6%. Un-fucking-real._ The German girl folded her arms. _I didn't quite make the sixteen on my first try, and it took me six months to break 35%. Does that spineless jerk think he's better than me?_

 _Joke's on him, the little shit. I bet he isn't ready for what forty percent will feel like when Ishtar takes a hit or two. He probably still thinks the Evas are just mindless, nerveless robots._

"Pilot Soryu -"

"I'm not fucking leaving!" Asuka growled, finally turning to look at the offending crew member. A short woman with cropped brown hair and Lieutenant stripes on her uniform stared back at her from her bridge seat; Asuka's grasp of Kanji was weak, but she could muddle through enough of it to make out the words _Ibuki_ _Maya_ stamped on the woman's name tag.

A wicked smirk crept across Asuka's face. "Say… _Maya,"_ she purred, deliberately ignoring the Japanese tradition of last names. "I hear I have a very unique cerebral activity pattern."

Maya's mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. "If by that you mean… your pattern is very different from Rei or the Third Child, you're correct," the Lieutenant answered carefully.

" _And_ I'm given to understand that's the reason you couldn't get Ishtar set up for me in time." Asuka's eyes narrowed. "Care to explain that?"

Maya flushed, but she composed herself quickly. "A… ahem. An A10 cerebrospinal interface driver is a massively complex piece of software. On top of that, each is largely exclusive to the pilot-eva pair it's generated for," she said, her tone measured. "Even with access to the MAGI supercomputer, creating one can only happen so quickly. And if there's _no_ similarities to work from, I can't copy -"

There was a piercing scream from the control comm. _Shinji's voice._

"Left vambrace is compromised!" One of the other techs yelled. "Both forearm bones are about to crack!"

It was as if Asuka had, abruptly, never even existed _._ Maya's attention was instantly on her station, and she spun her chair fast enough that in another workplace she'd be reprimanded for hazardous behaviour. Asuka drew breath for an angry outburst at suddenly being ignored - and then swallowed it, scowling at the back of Maya's head.

 _There's a pilot on deployment. And I called myself squad leader back in the cage; so he's one of_ _my_ _fucking pilots, as far as I'm concerned. Distracting the control crew would jeopardize his mission, and what kind of leader would that make me?_

 _I bet 41% doesn't feel so good now. I was at just 19% when I learned Moloch felt pain… and it still fucking shook me, to be honest._

The big screen showed a barrage of feeds - cerebral and spinal activity graphs, his synchrograph and a simplified view of the connective links below, a greyed out window flashing _Sound Only_ indicating Shinji's control comm was open, and numerous security or drone camera views of the battle. The hologram showed all manner of sensor telemetry in a bewildering jumble of nonsense. Ritsuko had gone up to the top echelon with the Commander and Lieutenant Commander and was scrutinizing the holographic battle display, while Misato had stayed on the main level, her eyes glued to the main screen.

On the video feeds, Sachiel picked up Unit 01 by her head in a single arm. Its freakish elbow-lance retracted, and then slammed straight into her eye.

 _Scheisse, that's gotta hurt! Ishtar's eyes match up with human ones, so he's probably taking a straight skull fucking right now…_

"Helmet integrity is dropping!"

"Shinji!" Misato yelled angrily. "Get up! Fight _back!"_

 _I'm with the good captain on that one. Yeah it hurts, but I don't need a teammate that can't fight through pain. You get hurt piloting Eva - it's fact of fucking life, and we're soldiers, not a goddamn after-school club._

The lance flashed again. Unit 01 still hung limply from Sachiel's hand, one arm twisted beyond use.

"Helmet integrity compromised!"

"The links are faulting," Maya rattled off, a worried tinge in her voice. "His synchrograph isn't diverging, though. In fact - he's _increasing_ his sync rate!"

 _That_ got Ritsuko's attention, and she leaned over the railing to look down at Maya. "With faulted links? How is that possible?!"

"I don't know," Maya called back, typing furiously. On the big screen, the links and synchrograph expanded. "The pulses are starting to reverse. Oh… oh god, no…"

There was another boom as the lance drove home again. Ishtar twitched.

"Helmet has failed. Skull puncture imminent!"

"Talk to me, Maya," Misato said, her voice tight and strained.

"Uhh." Maya glanced nervously at Ritsuko, who was double-timing down the steps to the main level. "The links have diodes in them. If they fault, they're not _supposed_ to stay connected, but the disconnect is not… reliable. And if the diodes blow out but the connections don't break, Ishtar's own 'mental' state is going to feed back into Shinji's brain -"

A final lance strike, and Asuka _saw_ the white spike come out the back of Unit 01's head. The cerebrospinal activity graphs blinked from blue to red, showing a sudden cascade of chaotic activity.

 _Scheisse, he'd better not die on his first deployment!_

"Brain case punctured, right eye destroyed!"

"The pilot is suffering a seizure," Maya ground out. "Connective pulses are flowing fully backwards. Senpai…"

 _Seizure… that's pretty light, for a fucking brain case injury! At forty percent, I expected him to die instantly!_

The _Sound Only_ panel abruptly vanished, and Shinji's semi-conscious vocalizations of pain cut off. The cerebrospinal graphs vanished a second later.

"Ishtar is… not responding to any radiocom signals…" Hyuga said, his voice shaky.

"Misato," Ritsuko said, leaning over the back of Maya's chair. "Get ready to deal with a berserker in a battlefield situation."

Sachiel didn't draw back its arm-lance again. Instead, its eyes - or at least, the eyeholes in its mask - flashed. The explosion threw Unit 01 backwards by a dozen city blocks, crashing her into a small office building.

"Umbilical cable has been cut! Ishtar is now on internal power!" Lt. Hyuga yelled. "Control rods have withdrawn successfully. Reactor core… active, output nominal at level two."

There was a loud _beep_ and another readout appeared - a timer. It read ' _Output Level 2: 129:59 minutes to shutdown'._

And then, Unit 01 stood up. She remained motionless for a split second before sweeping one leg back into a braced stance.

Sachiel fired its eye-blast again, striking Unit 01 in the exact same spot. The Evangelion staggered, but didn't go flying this time, or even fall; the blast shattered her right pauldron and part of her cuirass, but did no further damage.

"Oh, she had _better_ not get hit on the other shoulder," Ritsuko murmured. "I'm _not_ in the mood to rebuild those systems."

Unit 01 still didn't seem inclined to move - until she shuddered slightly, as if something had briefly moved within her.

"Internal sensors are detecting a phase space shift, pattern orange," Maya announced abruptly. "Ishtar appears to have generated an AT field."

The timer morphed, numbers flying as it rapidly adjusted. ' _Output Level 1: 19:42 minutes to shutdown. 4:59 minutes to red line.'_

Asuka's frown was replaced by a smug smirk. _At least Ishtar knows how to fight an angel, even if Shinji doesn't._

Sachiel fired yet again - and the blast detonated harmlessly in mid-air, a dozen meters from Ishtar's mangled helmet. An orange, hexagonal pattern flickered briefly where the explosion had dissipated

"… I'm calling that a successful field test," Ritsuko said. She produced a cigarette, lifting it to her lips and lighting it in a series of rapid movements. "Unplanned or not."

Without looking behind her, Maya reached up and snatched the cigarette out of Ritsuko's mouth, flicking it deftly away. "Hey!" The older woman whined.

"No smoking in the control room, Senpai. Rules are rules."

Misato raised an eyebrow at Maya's rather bold gesture - and the other eyebrow joined it when Ritsuko didn't chew her out for it. However, she didn't seem to have the spare attention span to comment - she just wordlessly turned her gaze back to the main screen.

Unit 01 was advancing towards Sachiel. She seemed wary; apparently even while pilotless and enraged, she was capable of controlling her fury. _That can't be common,_ Asuka thought. _I've read some reports on Asherah's berserk moments, but this is nothing I'd describe as a blind frenzy._

Another energy barrage rippled the AT field. Unit 01 paused to brace it, but didn't seem at all strained - and immediately resumed her methodical approach.

One of the cam drones swooped behind Sachiel, changing the viewing angle. A better observation of Unit 01's injuries was now possible, and Asuka bit her lip at the sight. Half her helmet was gone, along with her entire right eye - Asuka couldn't tell if the wound was still clean through, or if it had begun regenerating internally, but it was a creepy sight regardless.

 _As if it needed that. Project Evangelion is my life, but even I won't contend the fact that - under their pretty paint jobs and hyperdiamond armor - they're ugly motherfuckers._

The mottled dermis was visible where her shoulder had been hit; it looked surprisingly similar to pale leather, despite being tougher than most steels. She'd also broken her jaw wiring, and because of it, her mouth was hanging open. Not snarling, just… slack. Her _tongue_ wasn't inert, though - it kept running lazily over the blocky teeth in no apparent pattern.

Sachiel had been standing still as it fired at the Evangelion. Now, as she kept moving closer, it seemed almost uneasy.

Sachiel's stance twitched forwards - and Unit 01 lunged.

The leviathans collided with enough force to crush a skyscraper between them - or rather, their AT fields did. A chaotic, turbulent pattern of hexagonal shapes danced in the air between them as they stood some span apart, both physically straining against the barrier.

"Sachiel's AT field is speeding up its frequency," Ritsuko murmured, gazing at the telemetry feeds. "And it's strengthening it. Or trying to; it doesn't seem to be holding very well… I think it's tired. It can't have much left in it by now."

"Don't take that for granted," Misato answered, and her voice was like steel. "This is the first angel that Project Evangelion has ever dealt with in a combat situation. We have no idea what they're capable of."

"Four minutes to red line!" Hyuga called.

On the screen, Unit 01 lifted her undamaged right arm, placing its palm flat against the energy barrier.

Ritsuko visibly recoiled as she watched the telemetry. "I… how can she even _do_ that? We never installed variance systems in the AT augments!"

"I think she's doing it on her own," Maya answered. "They _are_ capable of creating AT fields without -"

"Lieutenant Ibuki, report," Misato snapped. On the screen, Ishtar's hand was - slowly but surely - forcing its way through the barrier.

"- Yes, Captain. Ishtar is varying her AT field's amplitude and frequency to match Sachiel's," Maya rattled off. "It's causing destructive interference, negating the flux density of both AT forces. The effect is generating an energetically neutral phase-space tunnel between them."

Unit 01's hand abruptly slammed forward, striking Sachiel's mask. The remote AT detectors abruptly went haywire, then flattened completely.

"Ishtar has breached Sachiel's AT field," Maya murmured; somewhat redundantly, as everyone's attention was fixed silently on the viewscreen.

 _17:52 minutes to shutdown. 3:10 minutes to red line._

Unit 01 seemed to sense her prey was defenceless. Her slack, slightly hungry-looking manner suddenly tensed into a predatory frenzy. Her tongue slid back into her lipless mouth, which slammed shut; her angular teeth ground over each other with a sound like shattering concrete.

Sachiel stepped back, wrenching its mask from the Eva's hand and glowing as it attempted to activate its strange flying ability - only to find that Unit 01 was _much_ faster in a pinch. The Evangelion bodily collided with the Angel, knocking it flat on its back beneath the purple-armored titan.

Sachiel's eyes flashed, and Unit 01 jerked her head to the side. There was a violet-tinged explosion high in the air, dissipating with no effect, but Sachiel seemed to have only needed a distraction; its arm was lifted and a glow was gathering at its palm -

Unit 01 shuddered as the light-lance pierced her unarmored shoulder, and then she howled - a deep, drawn-out sound that sounded more like a hydroelectric turbine speeding up than the voice of a living thing. Her right arm didn't seem severely impacted by the injury, though, and she pulled back a strike of her own.

The armored fist smashed straight into the Angel's core, and an unearthly high-pitched screech filled the air.

 _16:40 minutes to shutdown. 1:58 minutes to red line._

"Ishtar has sustained a flesh wound to her right shoulder," Aoba said. "Estimated strength loss under ten percent. No bone damage detected."

Sachiel raised both of its hands, catching Unit 01's fist. The Eva snarled, twisting against the grip, but the Angel's hold didn't break.

"Oh, no," Misato muttered. "Please, Ishtar…"

"She's taken heavy damage," Aoba replied. "She's a tough bitch, but that many injuries… a broken left arm, a damaged right shoulder, an energy blast through the eye and skull…"

Unit 01's arm slackened, and she whipped her body backwards.

 _Don't you run away, arschloch!_ Asuka screamed wordlessly. _This is a fucking victory or death battle! Nothing else matters until the fucker is dead!_

Sachiel held tightly to Unit 01's fist, even as she attempted to pull away. The Angel twisted its shoulders, trying to aim the eyes of its inconveniently-placed mask.

Abruptly, Unit 01 stopped thrashing.

"Wait, what's she -"

Sachiel's eyes flashed a second too late. Unit 01 hauled on her captive arm and curled her spine, ducking under the energy blast and ramming herself forward like a freight train - her horn, still affixed to the remaining half of her helmet, aimed straight for the Angel's core.

 **X-X-X **


	2. Aftermath of Sachiel

**X-X-X**

 **CHAPTER 2**

 **X-X-X**

Eight of the ten camera feeds simultaneously froze, then blinked out of existence.

The two remaining feeds - the views from two far-view drones on the city limits - glitched for a second, then showed a still-glowing mushroom cloud; smaller than that of a true nuke, but still _huge_. The feeds expanded to fill the free space in the suddenly barren viewscreen, giving the control room a high-resolution view.

It looked like the blast had destroyed the better part of sixteen city blocks around the battle scene. The smoke and ruined buildings obscured the epicenter, but a huge humanoid figure - initially flat on its back - was already standing up.

 _Well, fuck me._ Asuka's eyes were wide. _He may be a spineless wimp, but… if she can stand up after_ _that_ … _his unit is a fucking juggernaut._

The drones moved closer, the auxiliary staff already working to restore the best possible view. Unit 01 was just a silhouette in the smoke, but it was obvious that most of her armor was destroyed.

 _15:23 minutes to shutdown. 45 seconds to red line. WARNING - yellow line exceeded. Reactor is operating at unsafe temperatures._ A second later, a light appeared under the power timer - its label read _Check for fuel rod failure_ in tiny text.

"Ishtar is… I've lost a lot of my feeds, but she's… well… she _seems_ to still be alive…" Hyuga said, his voice slightly dazed.

"Shut her down," Misato called out. " _Now._ Scram and open the emergency vent."

Hyuga turned in his chair, looking at Misato. "C- captain, I have to inform you - venting Ishtar's reactor will release toxic and radioactive metal in an urban zone. The cleanup will -"

"That's an _order,_ Lieutenant." Misato didn't look away from the screen.

 _15:18 minutes to shutdown. 30 seconds to red line. WARNING -_

Hyuga tapped his screen twice, then hit the enter key on the keyboard.

Unit 01 jerked, then slumped forward, crashing to her knees and bending her back. A fiery plume of light sprayed from the center of her spine, the jet reaching almost as high as she was tall; after a second or two, it petered out into glowing orange rivulets running down her body.

"Control rods at maximum… coolant venting, auxiliary aqueous coolant flooding. Ishtar is now offline." Hyuga exhaled. "Estimated only 5% of coolant vented as gaseous LBE. It doesn't look like the contamination zone will be _too_ large."

Misato's shoulders finally lowered. "And Shinji?" She asked, quietly.

"Links are cold. He's not synced anymore… let me see if I can restore telemetry." Maya tapped an extended sequence into her keyboard. The cerebral activity graphs reappeared, along with several other vital signs. "Unconscious. Heartbeat looks… okay, given the circumstances. Cerebral activity is elevated and _not_ normal, but overall nervous shock doesn't seem critical."

"Send out the recovery crews," Misato said. "Make sure they have rad-hazard equipment. I _don't_ want the pilot exposed to radiation, you hear me?"

"Sir, yes sir!"

The battle tension began to trickle away from the atmosphere in the control room, and Asuka exhaled.

 _Didn't even realize I'd been holding my breath._

 **X-X-X**

The Angel Sachiel had been destroyed at 11:47 PM, Tokyo-3 time.

However, a combination of jet lag, caffeine and lack of anywhere to sleep saw Asuka still awake long into the wee hours of the morning.

She'd seated herself in the nearest cafeteria she could find after leaving the control room - a huge place for a mess hall, with potentially over a hundred tables. It was hardly unwarranted, as NERV Japan employed thousands of people, but it was still intimidating compared to the much smaller facilities of the German branch.

 _The fact that it's five in the morning and there's not a soul here doesn't exactly help, either._ Asuka idly fiddled with her phone, though she'd grown bored with every app she had an hour ago.

Another minute ticked by on the huge digital clock set into the wall. _It counts down the seconds. Must be fun to time your breaks here…_

"Oh, there you are!"

Asuka looked up at the sound of the captain's voice. "Misato. They finally let you go?" She said, entirely failing to keep a tinge of bored irritation out of her voice.

"Yeah," Misato answered simply. "I couldn't leave Ritsuko to oversee retrieval by herself. God, you should see the Commander… as far as I know he's still awake and overseeing cleanup from the control room. The man already never breaks his composure - now I guess he never _sleeps."_

"Well, his own son got the _tar_ beaten out of him," Asuka said idly. "I can't say that they seem the closest family pair, but that kind of stress can change a man's outlook." _Even if it didn't change my mama's. Or my own father's…_

"Say, Asuka…" Misato began again. "Do you have lodgings arranged in Tokyo-3? Since I know you only just got here."

Asuka blinked. " _Verdammt,"_ she muttered, scratching the back of her head. "Um… I don't mind bunking in the NERV barracks, at least for now."

"Don't be silly!" Misato said sharply. "A warrant officer is over rank to be bunking with the grunts - and I'm not having a fourteen-year-old child sleeping in a barracks with adults."

"You just mentioned my rank in the same sentence, so don't treat me like a fucking _kid,_ Misato." Asuka folded her arms, glaring at the captain. "Am I a teenager, or a soldier?"

"When there isn't an Angel out there, you're a teenager." Misato's voice was soft. "I was going to offer to let you stay with me, if you like."

"Why would I want that?" Asuka snapped back. "And you're never going to convince me your cleaning skills have improved any!"

"Don't you want to get to know the new kid?" Misato countered, a sly smile on her face.

" _Scheisse,_ you've got him living with _you?"_ Asuka sneered. "After that battle I'd have thought you'd want to _spare_ him further trauma."

"Very funny." Misato didn't seem fazed. "How's this for convincing: as of an hour ago, you _are_ enrolled in school here, and yes, that's under order of the Lieutenant Commander. My house is walking distance from your school. NERV barracks are decidedly not."

Asuka opened her mouth. Then she closed it. Then she opened it again. "That's a compelling argument," she grudgingly admitted.

"I thought so." Misato looked down at her phone. "I have to go… I'll be heading home at about 6:15. You know where I parked my car."

"Yeah." Asuka looked back up at the clock as Misato strode away.

 _5:08:36 AM_

" _Scheisse."_ She fiddled with her phone. _No, I'm not gonna… I'm not that much of a child. Separation anxiety, Asuka? Really?_

 _5:09:42 AM_

 _It's because I'm bored. Not because I'm lonely. I'm the great gottverdammt Asuka Langley Soryu, I don't get_ _lonely_ _._

Asuka opened her phone's contacts list. Her finger hovered above a familiar name, then pressed it.

 _Calling "Four Eyes." Sound only._

" _Heyyy, princess! What's up?"_ The answer was quick and unmistakable; Asuka knew multiple people who would answer her in German or Japanese, but only one in English. " _Isn't it like five in the bloody morning over there in Japan?"_

"Hey, Mari," Asuka answered tiredly. "I… yeah. I'm too jet lagged to sleep, though, and the ride to my lodgings is tied up for another hour anyway." _Well, I just admitted I'm staying with Misato… nothing for it, I guess…_

" _Oh? Doing what?"_ Mari's voice was suddenly inquisitive. " _You sound tired, princess. And you never call me Mari. What's up?"_

"I…" Asuka hesitated. "Is this line secure?"

The phone beeped, and the _sound only_ morphed into an image - an image containing a bespectacled British girl in a green and khaki skin-tight suit, complete with custom A10 headband and seated in a familiar looking chair. " _Secure as it gets, princess."_

Asuka's jaw dropped. "You did _not_ link your personal phone to Baal's comms. Oh my god, four eyes. They'll be _so_ mad if they catch you using an Eva radiocom suite for social calls."

" _I totally did! I'm amazed you didn't beat me to it, really. I'll show you how when I get the time."_ Mari leaned forward over the control yokes, resting her chin on her hand. " _So what's up?"_

"Are you talking to me while _on deployment?"_ Asuka deflected again. "What kind of a soldier are you?!"

" _Hey, don't talk to your big sister like that! And you're stalling."_

Asuka frowned. "You're not really my sister."

" _The LCL of the entry plug is thicker than the water of the womb. If we are not sisters by blood born, surely we are sisters by blood shed!"_ Mari waved her hand dramatically. " _I'm shadowing the UN fleet in Baal, aquatic combat equipment and all, because_ _someone_ _didn't feel a need to meet the requirements of green standby. Now. No more deflecting."_

Asuka flushed at the mention of her negligence, but knew it would only annoy the older pilot to talk about it further. She took a deep breath, releasing it slowly.

"There was an angel attack," she whispered.

Mari's cat-mouth smile vanished. " _Oh, hell. Are you okay, sis?"_

"I… yeah," Asuka managed. "I didn't get to sortie anyway. The Third Child swooped in out of nowhere and his old man - the fucking Commander of NERV, talk about nepotism - sent him out in Unit One. The _dummkopf_ got his ass kicked, and his unit had to berserk to finish the fight."

" _Unit One…"_ Mari tapped her chin. " _What's her name? Asherah? Azazel?"_

"Ishtar," Asuka corrected. "And she was a fucking _mess_ post battle. Worse off than her own pilot."

" _Oh, yeah. The purple one!"_ Mari grinned. " _Pretty, as units go. Sorry, sis, but red ain't really my thing."_

"You wouldn't know fashion if it slapped you in the face, you four-eyed dork. Moloch's armor is unquestionably the hottest shit in the NERV arsenal." Asuka straightened her back with pride. "Besides, that purple armor is completely fucked up. They'll have to rebuild from scratch, if I'm any judge."

Mari's eyes widened. " _Christ, princess! Is the pilot okay?"_

Asuka rolled her eyes. "He can't be worse off than the First. I think they're both in the hospital wing right now."

" _You think?"_

"I haven't _checked,_ if that's what you mean."

" _Asuka! For shame!"_ Mari frowned, wagging her finger at the video feed. " _These are your fellow pilots. Battles will come where your life will be in their hands! You'd check on me if I were the one hospitalized, right?"_

"Of course, _dummkopf!_ But it's not the same thing," Asuka whined. "You're my… my big sister, dammit. But I don't even _know_ those two, and they're _fucking_ rookies - I'm aiming to be their squad leader, and I'll need to be unfazed by shit like that, right?"

" _Asuka, Asuka, Asuka…"_ The British pilot repeated, putting a hand over her eyes. " _A leader has to be strong, yeah, but the_ _last_ _thing you want to do is act like you don't give a shit. Nobody can feel loyalty for someone who shows them none in return."_

Asuka opened her mouth, but found no words. "I - well -" she stuttered. "I mean -"

" _It doesn't take long to stop and say hello. You said your ride was leaving in an hour, right? You'll even have an excuse to cut your visits short. But trust me, princess: if you want them to look to you - and I_ _know_ _you do - at least give them an inch now, before you ask miles of them in combat."_

Asuka looked over to one of the cafeteria doors, the sign above it marked _D Wing: Medical._

"… _anyway, there are all sorts of… princess? Hey, Asuka!"_

Asuka turned back to the phone, startled. "Oh, sorry. I… can't really hear out of my left ear," she murmured apologetically.

" _What? Why not?! What happened?"_

The German pilot scratched the back of her head. "The UN didn't release authorization to deploy Eva immediately, and, well…" she trailed off. "The long and short is that I ended up uncomfortably close to the fireball of an N2 air burst bomb."

" _Jesus, princess! If you're determined not to visit the other pilots, get your ass to medical to get_ _yourself_ _checked out! Did you get dosed?"_

"Probably, yeah, but -"

" _No buts! Do it."_ There was a _beep_ from Mari's end of the line. " _Oh, shit. Admiral's pinging me. Gotta sign off, princess! Tootles!"_

The phone screen went blank. Asuka slumped.

 _I don't have time to get my ear checked out right now… but she had a point about visiting the other pilots. Scheisse._

Asuka pocketed her phone and stood up, kicking her chair back and ignoring the _crash_ as it fell over.

 **X-X-X **

The Third Child - Shinji Ikari - was unconscious, lying on his back with a remarkably peaceful expression. If Asuka didn't know better, she'd have said he was merely sleeping. In this light, the boy's puppy-dog features were actually kind of cute.

 _No bruises on his wrist, and his eye looks okay… that's good._ That level of damage to an Eva was uncharted territory. Asuka wouldn't have been surprised if Shinji had manifested some sort of sympathetic injury, even at just 40 percent synchronicity. _Given that recovery situation, he's lucky he's not dealing with radiation dosage and toxic metal contact too._

"He was comatose when they brought him in, and showing usual brain activity." The nurse was incredibly calm, given the circumstances. "His EEGs have been levelling off steadily, though - the doctors expect he'll be sleeping normally within an hour or two, and he should wake sometime this afternoon."

 _Get a lot of patients in for sync-shock, huh? Wait, of course they do. Their regular pilot here has a death wish._

"I… I guess there's not much more for me to see here." Asuka turned. "Where's the other one?"

"The other pilot?" The nurse looked… _uneasy? What?_ "Perhaps it'd be better if you came back later -"

"What?! I don't fucking think so!" Asuka snapped. _It's not yet six in the morning and I've had a long, stressful day. This bitch can fucking deal._ "I'm an Evangelion pilot too - you're talking to the Second Child here! These are my fucking _teammates._ I've got a _gottverdammt_ right to check on how they're doing!"

 _Ugh, did I really call the spineless wimp a teammate? Disgusting. At least the Mean Ultramarine Piloting Machine has some potential. Here I'd thought she was just some kind of part-time hardware tester, and then she's all "my legs won't work, so fucking_ _carry_ _me into the entry plug…"_

"I… okay, okay. Right this way, Miss."

"That's _Miss Pilot_ to you," Asuka muttered, but she followed the nurse.

The First Child turned out to be further into the hospital wing, in a small private room surrounded by empty wards. In fact, the wards weren't just empty - they were practically abandoned, bare of any medical equipment and suspiciously dusty in some places.

The nurse had led her down a flight of stairs to get here. _Is… is this a whole unused floor of the hospital? Why would they stick the first_ _here_ _, of all places?_

"She's in there," the nurse said, glancing at the clock on the wall. "She… might not be awake, but it's hard to tell with her. If you want to go in, I'll need to accompany -"

"No way. This is between pilots. Get lost." Asuka didn't have much height, but she drew it up anyway, fixing the nurse with a totally unyielding glare.

"But, I'm under orders from Section Two -"

"I'm authorized by Section Two. I'm the squad leader of the pilots," Asuka bluffed, deftly yanking the door open and sliding around it. "Now scram! It's classified. Et cetera."

The nurse turned white at the word _classified,_ and hurried away from the door. _Odd, I didn't think it would work_ _that_ _well… is there a lot of shady scheisse going down here in Japan? Filed under 'things to think on later…'_

"Who are you?" Came a soft voice behind her.

Asuka turned towards the bed. _Oh. Azure, really, not ultramarine. Oh well… I guess I can claim poetic licence._

"Asuka Langley Soryu… Second Child," she replied, automatically. "You're the First Child, right? Rei something? Sorry, we didn't really get a proper introduction in the Eva cage."

"Ayanami Rei. That is correct." The other child's single visible eye gazed back at her with utter indifference. "Why are you here?"

"Uh." _Good question. Why_ _am_ _I here?_ Asuka's eyes scanned the room. "Well, we're both pilots, right? I gotta make sure my teammate's going to pull through."

"You need not have worried," came the flat, soft reply.

There was an IV drip stand beside Rei's bed, leading into her right arm - she'd had the same attached to her gurney, too, but in the cage it had been filled with something nondescript and clear. The bag was _now_ full of a transparent, pale orange liquid. To Asuka, it was a familiar sight, but in a medical context it was the furthest thing from normal.

"Bullshit. You don't look okay to me," Asuka shot back. _What is with this girl's robotic droning? And god forbid she say a word more than absolutely necessary._ "You were gurgling blood back there, and shaking like a leaf. _Scheisse_ , look at you right _now!_ A mean look would put you down!"

"My death is not likely, and would be of little consequence regardless," Rei replied, still completely calm.

Asuka's gaze settled on a large glass bottle on a table on the other side of the room - also filled with the orange fluid. Unlike the IV bag, the bottle was labelled.

 _LIFE CATALYSIS LIQUID_

 _[Lilithian . Unprocessed]_

 _Batch #7793487_

 _I thought the stuff was called Link Circuit Liquid… but if it's orange, transparent, and abbreviated as L.C.L… a rose by any other name is just as thorned, right?_

"Little consequence?" Asuka finally said, turning back to the blue-haired pilot. "Are you… are you fucking _serious?!_ You're one of four active pilots in the goddamn _world."_

"I can be replaced." Rei didn't blink. _That eye… I never thought I'd see a shade of red I didn't like. Gives me the fucking chills._

"You… wait. What did you just say?" Asuka's voice took on an angry growl, and she advanced to the edge of Rei's bed. "Don't you _ever -_ even if you _weren't_ a pilot - don't you _dare_ call yourself replaceable, you fucking _hear me?"_

"Why not?"

"Because it's not _true,_ you red-eyed freak!" Asuka was snarling now. "You had the nerve to try and pilot an Eva with two _broken_ _limbs!_ You can't just _replace_ that kind of bravery, even in the regular army -"

"I did not volunteer," Rei murmured. "The Commander asked me to. It was necessary."

Asuka recoiled as if slapped.

"You… you just went along with…" her voice was quiet. "You just do what you're _told_ , is that it?"

"Yes."

 _Like a fucking doll…_

"Well." All of a sudden, Asuka's voice was almost as even as Rei's. "I came here to check on a wounded teammate! But what do you know, there doesn't seem to be any teammate of _mine_ here."

Rei's expression changed for the first time since Asuka had entered the room - her brow, or what was visible beneath the bandages, furrowed slightly. "I do not understand."

"Of _course_ you fucking don't," Asuka muttered, half to herself. She pulled her phone out of her pocket.

 _5:52 AM. Better start walking if I want to make it back to Misato's car - this place is huge, and I don't exactly know it well._

She didn't bother saying goodbye as she left the room, and Rei said nothing after her - only watched her leave, with as neutral an expression as ever.

 **X-X-X **

After the high-energy mayhem of the battle with Sachiel, the days after were something of a blur of normalcy for Asuka.

Misato hadn't obliged her to go to school that _day,_ a fact for which Asuka thanked every god she knew. Unfortunately, she had still been dragged out of bed after only four hours of sleep: she'd been booked for an appointment at the NERV hospital wing for a radiation exposure check-up. She'd left with a single dose of DTPA and the information that her radiation exposure hadn't been heavy enough to warrant any substantial concern, but she should check in if she started showing symptoms of further toxicity.

After that, she'd had a day where nothing at all was required of her, which she spent loafing and working to shift her internal timezone from Germany to Japan. Shinji had arrived at Misato's grimy apartment at some point that day, but Asuka hadn't paid a great deal of attention.

 _Then_ she went to school, and found it exactly as disappointing as she had expected. The classes were all material she knew by heart - except Kanji, which she kind of _needed_ to learn, but was pure _torture_ \- and were consequently infinitely boring. After going through college, the last thing she was interested in was revisiting high school courses.

But the worst aspect of school was undoubtedly the students.

As a white girl in east Asia, Asuka had expected to stand out. She fit all the standards of beautiful, and she was _very_ visibly European - she was taller than all of the girls and the majority of the boys, she was fair-skinned and had sharply germanic features, and she had blue eyes and red hair. In many ways she literally resembled a beacon fire.

 _And I like receiving all the praise due someone as stunning and talented as I am. I really do._ Asuka ground her teeth. _But pricks selling goddamn candid photos of me behind the school? That's a bridge too far._

So it was that Asuka found herself standing over a sprawled boy with glasses, shaggy hair, and an impressive bruise forming on his cheekbone. Some meters behind her, Shinji cringed.

"Next time it'll be a kick. And I'll aim lower," Asuka ground out. "Now hand over that camera so I can _feed it to my Eva."_

"What?! No!" The boy shrieked in response, scrambling backwards and standing up. "You have _no idea_ how much this thing cost!"

"Not more than you've already made selling your creepy pictures, I'll bet!"

"Ah… Soryu," Shinji said nervously. "Perhaps we ought to let it go at that…"

" _Fick dich ins knie,_ Shinji! I didn't fucking ask you."

"Hey," the photographer's companion said. "Brawl if ya want, but Aida's got a point. Let's not trash people's stuff, yeah?"

Asuka fixed her gaze on the other boy, not the least bit intimidated - despite the fact that he was the tallest person in their entire class, and had a solidly mesomorphic build to back his height. "And who are you, hmm? A Tweedledee for Tweedledum here?"

"Suzuhara Toji," the tall teenager replied. "Hey, you two are the ones who piloted that giant purple robot, right?"

"That's _All Purpose Humanoid Biomech: Evangelion,_ not 'giant purple robot,'" Asuka hissed back at him. "And no - _Shinji_ here was in charge of that embarrassing display. He got picked over me for deployment, out of what I can only assume was nepotism."

"Soryu -" Shinji muttered. "Misato said we weren't supposed to talk about NERV things in front of civilians -"

"Civilians, huh? Is that what we _are_ to you?" Toji shouldered past Asuka to loom over Shinji. " _Collateral damage,_ maybe?"

Shinji leaned back, although he didn't _step_ back. "I'm… sorry?"

" _Sorry_ ain't good enough!" Toji exploded. "While you were stompin' around in that overgrown action figure, us _little people_ were getting hurt!"

Shinji visibly recoiled, and Asuka tensed. _Oh, this isn't good._

"His little sister got hurt in the big monster battle the other day," the photographer - Aida - supplied helpfully. "She's in the hospital right now. Critical condition."

Shinji's eyes went wide at the implied accusation, but he didn't respond beyond fixing his gaze on the flagstones of the courtyard. _Seriously? Is this wimp really not going to defend himself or his work at all?_

"Sorry about your sister, but you're goddamn right it was collateral damage," Asuka spat at the back of the boy's head. "It was U.N. High Command that stopped us from deploying until the Angel was right on top of the city. Bitch at them, not us!"

"Shut up, you," Toji replied bluntly, without turning. "This is between this kid and me. Hey, kid, you got a name?"

"… Ikari Shinji." Nothing more seemed forthcoming, and the Third Child continued staring at the ground.

"Alright, Ikari. Here's what I think of your piloting skills." Toji punched Shinji in the face.

It was a solid strike - hard, neat and swift, with virtually no posture warning. Shinji was knocked flat on his back without so much as a stagger.

A split second later, Asuka kicked Toji's knee out from behind him and launched herself forward - curling an arm around his neck and slamming her knee into his backbone, landing in a kneeling pose on top of him. The boy let out a pained grunt as the air was driven from his lungs.

Asuka leaned forward. "You just assaulted a warrant officer of the UN armed forces, _arschloch,"_ she growled into his ear. "And you're lucky I was nice enough to kick you down _myself,_ because if it looked like I didn't have this under control, you'd be getting beat by Section Two agents right now."

"What?" Toji rasped, his voice constricted by Asuka's arm. "You're bluffing!"

"Do you _really_ want to bet on that?" Asuka countered, squeezing tighter.

" _What on earth is going on here?"_

All eyes turned to the newcomer - a diminutive girl with twin pigtails in her hair. Her small stature and tidy appearance made it difficult to believe she could have produced such a yell, and yet evidently she had.

"They started it!" Asuka and the photographer yelled, in almost perfect stereo. Asuka let go of Toji's neck and stood up, brushing herself off.

 _I don't know who this little girl is, but the other two seem afraid of her. She might be kind of important._

"Aida Kensuke." The girl's expression darkened. "You may begin."

"Gladly!" Kensuke shoved his camera into his pocket. "Me and Suzuhara were minding our own business back here, when this red-haired devil attacked us _totally out of the blue-"_

"Bullshit!" Asuka cut in. "This _creep_ was selling photos of me, and his hulking partner just attacked Shinji without provocation!"

Kensuke turned to glare at Asuka. "Hey, I'm the one who's telling this!"

"And lying through your teeth!" Asuka shot back.

"I think I have heard enough," the girl interjected. "Aida, you've been warned multiple times about how you use that camera - I'm going to have to report you to the school principal. I presume you - Soryu, was it? - threw the first punch?"

"You're damn right I did!"

"Then you can be let off the hook for being provoked. Unfortunately, Suzuhara was involved in the same brawl…"

"Huh?" Asuka's brow furrowed. "No he wasn't. His problem with Shinji was a completely different argument."

"I can't _verify_ that, unfortunately," the brunette said, her voice shifting from authoritative to apologetic. "All I know is that a fight happened here and two students suffered bruises."

Asuka looked over to Shinji… who was still lying flat on his back. His eyes were open, but he was staring at the sky with a disinterested expression.

 _He didn't make a noise when he got punched, he just took it. Is this even the same kid who was bawling his eyes out over having to get into Unit One? But then again, he just carried on like nothing was wrong after he woke up in the hospital… maybe he has grit after all._

"Hey, thanks, class rep," Toji said. "You're the best."

The other girl actually _blushed_.

"Oho! I see how it is," Asuka said, smirking. "Well, no comment. But keep your pet gorilla on a leash! His habit of punching _Eva Pilots_ might land him in a bit of trouble if he keeps it up."

The brunette's blush deepened, and she covered her face with her hands. "Get out of here, Suzuhara," she mumbled. "I'm not going out of my way to defend you next time you're caught fighting."

Toji took the hint, and hightailed for the school building as fast as he could walk without actually running.

"Sorry about that," the girl said, bowing to Asuka. _Eugh, that's one Japanese mannerism I'm never going to get used to._ "My name is Horaki Hikari. I'm the class representative of 2-A… clearly not an effective one, though, since Aida seems to be up to his old game. Once again, sorry."

"Sorry, sorry, sorry," Asuka mimicked. "You sound like Shinji with all that. I'm Langley-Soryu- err- ahem. _Soryu, Asuka Langley_. Pleased to meet'cha."

"You too." Hikari scratched the back of her head, a slightly embarrassed expression once more gracing her features. "Err… I have to get back to the classroom, actually… perhaps you should check on your friend, there?"

"My what? Shinji's not my -" Asuka cut herself off, Mari's advice echoing in her memory. _Give them an inch now, before you ask miles of them in combat…_ "Yeah, okay. I'll deal with the useless lump."

"I'll see you later!" Hikari yelled as she dashed away.

Asuka didn't bother calling after her. She walked over to where Shinji lay, her movements deliberately unhurried, until she was leaning directly over his face.

 _Took it without a squeak, but now he's doing a dead man impression… gottverdammt, is he tough or is he a weakling? I can't figure him out. Why can't he make up his mind?!_

"Hey. Hey, Third. Ace pilot to conscript. You in there?" The boy might have been comatose for all the response he gave. "Oh come on, _dummkopf._ You bounced back from having your skull split open and your wrist snapped like a twig. Don't tell me a bruise from a jock is _half_ as bad."

That got Shinji to actually focus on her - as opposed to staring straight up through her as if he could still see the sky - but he said nothing.

"You're only proving my point, you know. The First may be a bottle-blue dolly, but at least she doesn't shut down silent over a scrape." Asuka arched an eyebrow. "Or multiple massive traumas, as the case may be."

Shinji still didn't respond, and Asuka frowned, putting her hands on her hips. "Really? You know what, fine. Screw you." She straightened. "Lie there all fucking day, see if I care."

Shinji had resumed staring at the clouds. It took close examination to even be sure he was still breathing.

In the distance, the schoolbell rang. Asuka turned to look at the school building as students began coalescing towards it.

Shinji's eyes flickered in the same direction. After a second, he tensed, then shifted his arms and pushed himself into a sitting position.

 _Well, at least he seems to grasp impersonal social expectation, if not outright demands. As long as I'm not dealing with a total catalepsy case._

Asuka reached out her hand. Shinji blinked at it, as if the gesture had startled him. _It might have, actually. He's timid enough._

"Well?" Asuka said, her voice flat.

Shinji gripped her hand and let himself be hauled to his feet - and gave Asuka a downright shocked look when she did so without shifting her stance at all, as if he weighed almost nothing. _Heh, boys always seem to freak out when they see a girl with muscle. Ace pilot, arschgesicht: it means more than just a sync score._

"Why the sudden kindness?" Shinji asked abruptly. "You were _just_ insulting me."

"You may not have courage or ambition, Third," she replied in a clipped tone. "But you at least seem to have a sense of duty. So that's _something_ we can work with."

 **X-X-X **

" _So. How are they doing?"_

Misato leaned her head against the edge of the tub. "Alright, I guess. They only just started school."

" _Come on. You've got to give me more than that."_

"What can I say? Shinji has 'nondescript' down to an art form," Misato replied. "I even got him a phone, you know? But he never uses it. No calls, no texts. Practically the only thing that demonstrates his _existence_ is that he's a damn good cook."

" _Is he? How odd. His father barely eats, and when he does he doesn't seem to notice what he's eating."_

"Pay a lot of attention to the commander, do you?" Misato tried to keep her voice cool, but she suspected she didn't succeed. It had always bothered her, to a greater or lesser extent, that Commander Ikari viewed Ritsuko as one of his closer confidants.

" _I've known the man a long time, and the number of times I've seen him eat can be counted on one hand. Not even an intact hand, necessarily."_ Ritsuko paused. " _What about the red devil?"_

Misato groaned. "Uuuugh. Don't remind me."

" _That bad, eh?"_ Ritsuko chuckled. " _Her mother was a pain in the ass, too."_

"She's… I'll grudgingly admit that she's not as bad as she was when I first met her," Misato managed. "That was back when she was just nine years old. But she's not a _lot_ better. Outside of military contexts, which I make an effort _not_ to take home from work, she's still the same pissy princess who thinks she's the world champion at everything - and even more galling, she actually _is!_ A least, with regards to anything she can be convinced to focus on!"

" _Hah. Yes. Though I've no personal experience with the second child, I've been told she's… quite a handful."_

Misato straightened, preventing herself from sinking completely into the bathwater. "Yeah, she is." Though Ritsuko couldn't see it, she furrowed her brow. "Now tell me why you give a crap, because you _hate_ children, and normally avoid seeing them or hearing _anything_ about them."

There was a brief silence on the other end of the line. Somewhere in Ritsuko's office, a machine beeped.

"Ritsuko…"

" _I… okay. I'm really, really not supposed to tell you this."_ Ritsuko took a deep breath. " _The Commander asked me to unofficially - and yeah, he said 'unofficially' - keep tabs on you and both kids."_

Misato bolted upright. " _What?!"_

" _I'm sorry, Misato. I didn't - I didn't want to, but he'd have found another way if I'd said no. I wouldn't put it past him to bug your house and wiretap your phones."_

"He… the Commander wouldn't do that." Even as she said it, she didn't believe it.

" _Yours wouldn't be the first house he's had bugged. Mine has been for months; I had to work a little magic to secure this line before calling you."_ Ritsuko sighed. " _I'm sorry, Misato."_

"You… he…" Misato stuttered, trying to collect her thoughts. "He asked you. _You._ To keep tabs on me."

" _Yes…?"_

"Does he…" Misato pinched the bridge of her nose. "Does he know about us?"

Silence again. Then - " _I don't think he…_ knows- _knows; we've been pretty careful at work… but he probably has some suspicions. He knows we're closer than just friends and ex-roommates. But I think he still believes you're infatuated with Kaji."_

Misato let out a short, sharp laugh at that. "He would, wouldn't he." Her voice softened. "Thanks for being honest with me, Rits."

" _Don't thank me. Not for that… there are still too many things I haven't told you yet."_ Ritsuko was almost whispering. " _Please trust me when I say it's for your own safety."_

Misato's eyes narrowed, and she took a deep breath. "I do trust you, Ritsuko," she replied. "But that doesn't make this easy."

" _Well, Maya says NERV corporate policy is that no one ends the day without a headache. I'm beginning to think she may have a point with that."_ There was another beep in the background. " _Ahh, I have to go soon… duty calls."_

"You've worked seventy hours _already_ this week, Rits. Don't kill yourself."

" _I've had to, trust me. I never realized how extensive and arcane Section Three's systems really were, until I was told to generate new calibrations for practically everything I've ever built."_ Ritsuko allowed a note of fatigue to enter her voice. " _I can't believe we didn't have a procedure in place for adding optimization sets for new pilots. Clearly, I'm going to have to change some things."_

"Heh. You do that, Rits." Misato smiled. "Bye now. I… I love you."

" _Love you too, Misato."_

 **X-X-X**

 _This body is 10.49 years old and its heart has beat 441,512,203 times_

 _This body is 10.49 years old and its heart has beat 441,512,204 times_

 _This body is 10.49 years old and its heart has beat 441,512,205 times_

Occasionally, Rei recalled that surely her body's heart had beat _before_ , too - when it was just a soulless shell floating in the Chamber of Guf with hundreds of others.

 _But it was inactive. And as my nature dictates, I can only observe it from the point of activation - from the moment it bore a soul._

 _This body is 10.49 years old and its heart has beat 441,512,210 times -_

"Rei."

Rei's attention instantly snapped away from her introspective idle-mind process, surfacing once more in the perception she called reality.

"Commander," she said softly, the corners of her mouth turning up. _Humans smile when they are pleased. I am pleased to see Commander Ikari. Therefore I should smile._

"Are you functional?" The man asked.

"I can walk. My left leg is under-exercised but sufficient. My cardiovascular and respiratory functions have returned to within acceptable parameters," Rei replied, sitting up from the hospital bed. "My left eye remains suboptimal, and may need recalibration. The bones of my left hand and wrist are incompletely set and require continued immobilization at this time."

"I see." Gendo's voice remained cold and impassive, and he turned to leave. "You are being discharged as we speak. You will not return to school yet, however. You are needed on standby. The other two pilots are travelling to New Yokosuka in two days."

Rei didn't question why this might need the case. _I have no need of that knowledge. I will simply wait in Holding Cage Zero until I am deployed or released from standby._

 _Cage Zero…_

"Unit Zero is still in stasis?" One would have had to strain their ears to hear the questioning inflection in Rei's soft monotone.

"It will be out of cryostasis by 3:00 PM on saturday." The Commander paused at the threshold, and turned to look over his shoulder. "However, it cannot be launched without performing reactivation tests. You will be on yellow standby for deployment in Unit One."

 _Very well. I shall wait in Holding Cage One._ "Yes, sir."

Gendo left without another word. Rei stood up from the bed, peeled the hospital gown off and walked over to where her school uniform lay draped across a chair.

 _Should I have told him about Pilot Soryu's visit?_

 _No, she said she was authorized. I would not wish to annoy him with unimportant or redundant information._

 _This body is 10.49 years old and its heart has beat 441,512,692 times…_

 **X-X-X **

**[Four Eyes]:** _Landing time has been confirmed. The carrier will be in New Yokosuka harbor by noon on Saturday. Don't be late, princess!_

 **[Princess]:** _Pff, as if I'd even think of being late to welcome my one true love to Japan._

 **[Princess]** _: See ya soon, four eyes!_

 **[Soryu Asuka Langley]:** _Hey, are you free Saturday? And if yes, would your dad mind if you made a trip out to New Yokosuka?_

 **[Horaki Hikari]** _: Yes to the first, probably not to the second. Why?_

 **[Soryu Asuka Langley]:** _It's a surprise._

 **[Aida Kensuke]:** _I guess we didn't really meet under the best of circumstances, did we? But, I'm not one to hold grudges if you're not!_

 **[Ikari Shinji]:** … _how did you get this number?_

 **[Aida Kensuke]:** _I have my ways! Anyway, as I was saying, no hard feelings about the other day, yeah? Toji is a bonehead; try not to take what he says to heart. You're a hero for saving the city, no matter what he says._

 **[Ikari Shinji]:** _Look, I have no real quarrel with you, but… this is not a conversation I'm having over text._

 **[Ikari Shinji]:** _Is that all you wanted?_

 **[Aida Kensuke]:** _Well, I'll be completely honest: there was a small favor I've been meaning to ask you. You know, what with you being a pilot and all._

 **[Aida Kensuke]:** _There's something big going on in New Yokosuka on Saturday. NERV is involved, therefore, you're involved. And, if you didn't know this already, I am Japan's biggest military tech nerd._

 **[Ikari Shinji]:** _I'll… see what I can do, I guess._

 **[Aida Kensuke]:** _Woah, really? You're the man, Ikari!_

 **X-X-X**


	3. MOLOCH

**X-X-X **

**CHAPTER 3**

 **X-X-X**

New Yokosuka was built a stone's throw from the submerged ruin of old Odawara. Prior to second impact, the city would have been built on shallow, idyllic highlands - but the New Yokosuka had in fact been thrown together from refugee camps after the impact. The much higher-altitude Hakone city had survived, and had grown immensely in its rebirth as Tokyo-3 - but the original Odawara, along with the majority of the urban zones to the east, had been swallowed by the rising ocean.

Nevertheless, New Yokosuka was a city of respectable size. As the closest seafront city to the Tokyo-3 metro zone, huge quantities of cargo - a great deal of it bound for NERV - passed through its gargantuan port every day.

Today, however, the port was entirely shut down for normal business. Only a single piece of cargo would be being unloaded, and from an _aircraft carrier_ rather than the normal container barges. This cargo merited the special treatment, though - it was worth more than the combined cost of every single shipment that had ever passed through new Yokosuka.

" _Are you guys at the dock yet?"_ Asuka whined into her phone, excitement lending a harsh German accent to her English. " _We're nearly there!"_

" _Jesus Christ, princess, calm your recently pubescent tits! It's still half an hour to unloading time, and no, you can't rush maneuvering a Nimitz class aircraft carrier."_

From the other side of the van, Kensuke groaned. "Just how many languages _does_ she speak?"

Toji blinked. "Wait, that wasn't German?"

"She speaks German, Japanese and English," Misato said, still blinking sleep from her eyes. "She'll tell you she speaks Russian, too, but she'll be lying."

"Heyyyy," Asuka whined, pocketing her phone. "How do you know I don't? I visited the Russian branch that time, remember?"

"It took even _you_ months to become fluent in English, and you were _living with Mari_ at the time," Misato yawned. "You spent a single week at NERV-R. Sorry, little miss genius, but you're not _that_ talented."

"Says you," Asuka muttered, but she didn't press the issue.

The van was silent for a moment. Then Hikari spoke up from beside Asuka.

"Umm. What are we here for, exactly? I didn't… I mean, Asuka didn't tell me…"

Shinji, wedged between Kensuke and Toji, shrugged as well as he could in the tight space. "I'm in the dark too. I'm just here because Misato didn't want to leave me at home alone."

" _You're_ here because it's your duty as a pilot to be here," Asuka snapped. " _I'm_ here to see my two favorite things."

"No you're not." Misato's voice was firm. "You're here because you were supposed to be on the _Over The Rainbow_ with her, and this is the quickest way to rectify that. You'll be accompanying her on the rail trip to NERV headquarters and walking her into her cage."

"'Her,' 'her,'" Kensuke said. "Are you talking about what I _think_ you're talking about?"

"Hey, she's a who, not a what! And she's a prettier woman than _you,_ Aida!" Asuka growled. "Besides, it's _classified."_

"Asuka, you can't say that when you brought your _own_ civilian guest. They'll all see soon anyway." Misato rolled her eyes and addressed the group. "The UN pacific fleet is carrying special NERV cargo into New Yokosuka. This cargo -"

"The UN pacific fleet?" Kensuke seemed skeptical. "The _entire_ UN pacific fleet?"

"Yes, as well as - due to Asuka's truancy - NERV-UK's provisional Unit Five, as extra security." Misato chuckled at Kensuke's raised eyebrows. "She merits that kind of escort. This 'cargo' is Asuka's own sweetheart - Evangelion Unit Two, callsign 'Moloch.' She's worth more on her own than every ship in the fleet combined."

Kensuke's jaw dropped, and Hikari's eyes widened. Even Toji looked suddenly more interested.

Asuka was practically glowing. "Walking her - you mean I get to _sync?"_ She said, her voice hushed. "Before waiting for activation tests?"

"Much as I hate to cater to your sense of germanic superiority, Moloch _is_ our most level-headed Unit to date. Her documents say you tested her at full activation only a month ago in Berlin; I think there's little risk." Misato sighed. "And I'd much prefer to have her walk onto the elevator and into her cage than be lifted. Cranes and Chinooks are a huge headache to coordinate."

Abruptly, the van stopped.

"This is it, folks!" Lt. Hyuga called cheerily, looking back over the driver's seat.

The group piled out of the van. Asuka and Kensuke were the first, scrambling like their lives depended on it; the others followed at a more sedate pace.

There was already quite a sight to be seen: just outside the largest dock, a massive semi-humanoid floated gently in the water. From its waist up it looked more or less like a peculiarly armored Evangelion Unit, although the inorganic joints in the shoulders and elbows were somewhat unusual. But splayed out across the water from its hips were four long, slender, singled-jointed legs, almost insectoid in appearance and clearly mechanical. Its 'feet' terminated in large float-booms, the back two of which were clearly motorised.

Its head was also leaned forward. Though it was mostly facing them, Asuka could see an open entry plug protruding from the back of its neck.

 _She's not in Baal? What else would be she doing…?_

"Holy _shit!_ That's Unit Five all right!" Kensuke squealed in delight as he dashed up to the railing, leaning over and pointing his video camera. "That's the provisional Unit from the English branch, right? I heard it was going to be scrapped before they decided to try mechanically engineering those replacement limbs!"

"Watch it, freak," Asuka hissed. "You're not supposed to know _half_ of that."

She turned her eyes off Mari's powered-down Eva unit, focusing on who she was _really_ here for.

Beyond the Evangelion and still out in the bay - and inching slowly, ever so slowly towards the dock - was one of the largest ships in the sea, the _Nimitz-_ class aircraft carrier _Over The Rainbow._ On the flight deck and taking up more than a third of the flat area was something _huge,_ half-covered by a gargantuan tarpaulin. Anything that showed underneath was a glossy scarlet.

"Is that it - is that _her?"_ Kensuke breathed. "Unit Five was cool enough, but… damn…"

"First of the main series, best of her kind… Evangelion Unit Two. _Moloch."_ Asuka gave a wolfish grin. "Can't beat _made in Germany._ Your Japanese mass production can suck it."

" _Asuka."_ Misato had a note of warning in her voice. Fortunately for the both of them, the German pilot didn't say anything more.

Finally, Lt. Hyuga stepped out of the van, extending the antenna on a walkie-talkie as he did so.

"Rail crew. Status?"

" _We have all four tracks cleared up to the Geofront junction, where the supercargo elevator is standing by. Moving the twelfth flatcar into position now."_

"Noted. Over and out." Hyuga pressed a button on the device, switching channel. " _Over The Rainbow,_ status?"

" _Moving into position on schedule. Be advised the dock is too shallow for us to move in fully - we're going to have to roll the cargo from a partially docked position."_

"Understood. The special ramp should be up to scratch to compensate, but I'll admit this is the first time it'll be undergoing full weight testing."

" _Understood. We will be in position in twelve minutes, control. Over and out."_

 **X-X-X**

 _This body is 10.5 years old and its heart has beat 441,624,192 times._

Rei was sitting on the edge of the lower umbilical bridge, her toes just barely rippling the surface of the coolant as she stared up at the head of the giant creature. She was fully dressed in her bone-white plugsuit, and Unit 01's neural interface was already clipped in her hair.

 _All-Purpose Humanoid Biomech Evangelion: Unit One. Callsign 'Ishtar.' Test type for the 1.1 DNA model and armor form factor, now incorporated into the main line as the 1.1b variant._

Sachiel's suicidal explosion had destroyed or critically damaged every piece of Ishtar's armor, but the JSSDF and NERV's own industrial sector had come together to replace the entire set in just two days. The new armor was identical to the old, although the scratches from old tests and exercises were now notably absent.

 _Her armor is still violet. Blue would be more aesthetically pleasing, but violet is inoffensive._ Rei's eyes wandered over the ridges and planes of the painted ADNR plates. _She has two eyes; as far as I know, this is an unusual coincidence. Perhaps an artifact of the difference between 1.1 and 1.1b._

 _Ishtar is special to the Commander, though I do not know why. He loathes the thought of putting her at risk… I have heard him telling Fuyutsuki that she is to be deployed as infrequently as possible. Clearly, this extends to mean she is not to be piloted by his most expendable pilot._

 _Nevertheless I wish this were not so. I… enjoy piloting Ishtar._ Rei hesitated briefly; her mental journaling did not usually stray into such patterns, but she persisted. _I have been unable to pinpoint the reason, but there is a familiarity I feel with her - one I do not feel with Asherah. This fact has repeatedly allowed me to synchronize better, and Dr. Akagi believes I would be best utilized in Ishtar, but the Commander has ordered Asherah as my primary unit._

 _I shall trust his reasoning. He is, after all, my commander._

 _This body is 10.5 years old and its heart has beat-_

Rei twitched abruptly as a searing pain shot through her head. She gasped, clutching the metal of the bridge and swaying.

 _Something has happened. Something feels different._ The pain receded, but the uneasy feeling at the back of Rei's skull persisted.

Moving gingerly, Rei pushed herself to her feet. The umbilical bridge had not moved under her, and there were no ripples in the coolant but for those her own feet had caused. The few technicians working on the upper bridge didn't seem to have noticed anything unusual.

 _Clearly it was not a physical effect, and it struck no-one in this room but me. Is it because of my uplink augments? Or is it to do with the greater underlying anomalies with my biology?_

 _Perhaps I should notify Dr. Akagi. Yes, she will want to know. Irregularities may signify breakdown, and if I die by breakdown it may not be viable to activate another body. I am not yet permitted to pass on permanently._

Pushing the incident from her mind, and ignoring the persistent _difference_ she could still feel, Rei sat back down on the edge of the umbilical bridge.

 _This body is 10.5 years old and its heart has beat 441,624,350 times..._

 **X-X-X**

"So… this is it then, Ikari?"

Ryoji Kaji was not a man for titles or, frankly, respectful demeanor of any kind. While most would stand a ways away from Gendo's desk, closer to the entrance of the vast yet spartan office - Kaji sauntered cheerily up to the desk and deposited the hard carry-case without bothering to check if there was anything beneath.

Behind his glasses, Gendo tilted his gaze to regard the case. It was the serious kind of hard case; an all-steel shell with four clasps and a RADIATION HAZARD label in the center.

 _But its contents are nothing even close to as harmless and benign as gamma-emitting radioisotopes. No, this innocent carry-case is party to a far darker force…_

"It's still frozen in bakelite," Kaji continued, "But it _is_ alive, and it's regenerating despite the freeze. Slowly, but it's happening."

Gendo kept his gaze locked on the case. "Sooner than we expected," he murmured.

"But is it _too_ soon?" Kaji wondered aloud. "After all, the old men have their special schedule. As do you. And the two are different, even if you pretend they are not."

Gendo tilted his head up slightly, fixing his gaze on Kaji.

"Jeez, it was just a question."

"Your questions will get you killed someday, Ryoji." Gendo's tone did not change an iota. "And soon, if you're not careful."

"Aye, you think I don't know that?" Kaji chuckled. "Being a spy isn't for everyone. A short lifespan comes with the job."

 _Not short enough for my tastes._

"Anyway, Ikari," Kaji said cheerily as he turned, "I'll leave you and _Adam_ alone now. I imagine you want to personally inspect your… keystone, was it? Besides, I'm gonna be out of town for a while. Bye."

The office door closed, the soft sliding sound still managing to echo in the barren, cavernous space.

Behind his orange sunglasses, one of Gendo's eyes twitched.

 **X-X-X **

Rolling Unit 02 off the aircraft carrier was possibly one of the most painstaking tasks that had ever been undertaken. Loading her _on_ hadn't been easy either, but in that circumstance, if something failed suddenly she'd be sliding backwards instead of forwards - and it was much easier to operate safety breaks for the former.

 **[Princess]:** _where ARE you? Jeez, this act is not funny!_

 **[Four Eyes]:** _It'll be pretty funny soon. Relax, princess._

 **[Princess]:** _You're such a bitch, four eyes._

 **[Princess]:** _Well, I've got an Evangelion to reunite with. You can come join me whenever you feel like it, but I'm not going to go looking for you._

 **[Four Eyes]:** _Oh, I will, princess. I will._

Asuka pocketed her phone and walked forward, ducking under the yellow safety tape that the engineers had set up around the terminus of the four rail lines they were commandeering.

"Asuka! You're not supposed to enter -" Misato yelled after her. "There's heavy machinery at work in there! It's not safe!"

 _Heavy machinery, hah. As if I don't handle heavier machinery every time I get into an entry plug._ Asuka ignored Misato's protests, ducking around the spotters to reach the front of the flatcar convoy, where the engines had yet to be connected to the cars.

The titanic carrying platform was being inched forward over the flatcars by four of what essentially seemed to be hydraulic lift jacks mounted on caterpillar treads. They were being supplemented by two immense container cranes lifting from the middle of the rectangle, which probably contributed to the glacial pacing of the operation.

Nevertheless, after a solid two hours of the Evangelion creeping slowly down the huge steel ramp, it was - finally - entirely on flat ground.

No longer restricted to a snail's pace by the incline, the lift-jacks easily tripled their speed, shifting from feet per hour to whole _meters_. From there the operation went quite rapidly; the platform was already halfway over the convoy by the time it had levelled.

The foreman's voice crackled over a nearby radio. " _All the links look lined up. Put her down, boys."_

There was a change in the groaning of shifting steel, and the Evangelion descended the final few feet to rest on the flatcars. Despite a few worrying creaks and pings that almost suggested breakage, neither the convoy nor the rails failed under the weight.

Asuka gazed up at the tarpaulin-covered head of the Evangelion. _My Evangelion, my Moloch. The unit built to carry me in her entry plug. I give her life, and she gives my life purpose._

Much further down the convoy and closer to Unit 02's hand, Misato was signing the documents that indicated a transfer of custody.

 _You're gonna love it here in Japan, süsser. The food sucks, but they have real angels for us to fight._

One of Asuka's eyebrows rose as she saw a strange lump under the tarpaulin, just above the crown of the helmet.

 _Did they install something new while I was away? No… one week isn't long enough for that. I'd have known about anything in development…_

Abruptly, the lump shifted, moved forward, and slid down the Evangelion's helmet - free-falling out from under the tarpaulin.

"HEYYY THERE, PRINCESS!"

Asuka jumped backwards a solid meter, narrowly avoiding a pair of green plugsuit boots that threatened to clip her nose. " _Gottverdammt,_ four eyes! What the _hell_ -"

"Come here and give your big sister a hug!"

" _Fuck_ no! You reek of LCL!" Asuka snapped back. "I don't care how much you missed me, I'm not hugging you before you've showered!"

"Oho…" Mari's face took on a sly grin. "Is that a promise to hug me?"

"No!"

"It totally is and I'm going to hold you to it!"

"Get away from me, you four-eyed _inselaffe_ pervert!" Asuka drew back another step, raising her arms in warning - although given that the older pilot had six or seven inches of height advantage, it was hardly likely to help.

"Oh, pejoratives now? I'm hurt, Princess. I thought you were better than the other _heinie huns -"_

The two pilots were interrupted by the sound of someone aggressive clearing their throat.

"Congratulations, you have both achieved the status of major public embarrassment to NERV." Misato folded her arms and raised an eyebrow. "If you're _quite_ done, please get the hell out of the work zone. We need to hook up the engines and go - and we're already far enough behind schedule!"

Asuka felt an irritated retort forming in the back of her mind, and promptly bit her tongue. _You're technically on duty, Asuka; you can only mouth off to your superior so many times before you start pushing it. Even a superior as lenient as Misato._

"Come on, princess," Mari said, taking Asuka's hand and pulling her away from the railways. "Let's not delay her move-in."

Asuka followed with a sour expression, although her face lifted somewhat as they left the cordoned zone and the engines began backing slowly towards the links on the front of the convoy.

She squeezed the other pilot's hand; not hard, but enough to be felt through the neoprene and axon mesh of the plugsuit. " _I missed you, Mari,"_ she said in English.

Mari smiled, but then her expression shifted, becoming quizzical. " _Why so sappy all of a sudden?"_ She replied.

" _I haven't seen you in a year! You weren't at NERV-UK when I last went in for patterns and cross-harmonics. That was a really boring two weeks!"_

" _Ahh, sorry,"_ Mari said, embarrassed. " _I was in Sheffield at the time. Baal was being fitted for a special power adapter."_

"Hey, what are you two weirdos babbling about over there?"

Asuka spun to face the rest of their group, then looked back to Mari. " _Ahh, these clowns. As you can probably tell by appearance, they are a moron, a pervert and a wimp, respectively. The girl is the only decent human being among them. Unfortunately, the wimp is also the Third Child."_

"I have no idea what you just said… but I suspect it wasn't flattering." Kensuke narrowed his eyes. "So, who's the hot European chick in the catsuit? You should introduce us, Soryu."

"I can introduce myself, I think. Fifth Child, _Pilot_ Mari Makinami Illustrious." Mari tilted her head. "Also, sorry, but I don't date little boys."

Kensuke bristled. "Hey, I'm fourteen!"

"That's still little. And perhaps I should clarify: I don't date little children _or_ boys." Mari chuckled. "Hey, Third Child. What's your name?"

Shinji seemed to have accepted that _Third Child_ was now part of his life's titles, because it got his attention more or less immediately. "Oh, uh… Ikari Shinji, ma'am."

"Oh, aren't you a cute one? Like a little puppy with folded ears." Mari leaned forward, abruptly invading Shinji's personal space and inhaling deeply. "Hmm… what an interesting smell. Almost like there's something special in your LCL…"

"Hey, I thought you said you weren't interested in _little boys!"_ Kensuke accused, as Shinji leaned back with a stricken expression.

"She isn't," Asuka grumbled, roughly poking the older pilot's side. "She's just a perverted English weirdo. I swear she's the only human being on earth who _likes_ the smell of LCL."

"LCL, huh?" Kensuke raised an eyebrow. "And just what is this strange substance of which you speak?"

" _Classified,"_ the three pilots chorused. Asuka tilted her head - she hadn't expected Shinji to say it too - but didn't comment.

"I - um - anyway," Shinji replied, apparently deciding to simply move on from Mari's odd behaviour. "Will you be staying with us in Tokyo-3, miss Illustrious?"

Mari's face fell. "I… no. I wish I was, but I'm only stopping here for the day. By tonight I'm gonna be back at sea."

"Aww, doing what?" Asuka pouted. _I hate being part of a different branch. It means I never know what she's up to._

"There's a joint expedition by NERV-UK and NERV-R up north." Mari looked back at the dock, where Unit 05 could be seen behind the aircraft carrier. "I've been assigned to Bethany Base, up in the old arctic circle - there's some secret experiments going on there, real hush-hush stuff. Whatever it is, it seems it's scary enough to warrant an Evangelion standing guard. Though I'll freely admit that Baal is the weird runt of the extant units."

Asuka's eyes narrowed. "Could they really have captured an angel?" She muttered.

Mari gave her a surprised look. "You think? Seems far fetched to me."

"There's precious little reason to commandeer an Eva otherwise," Asuka said, chewing on her lower lip. "Unless _you_ can think of why else they might be be requesting, as guard detail no less, what is essentially the heavy infantry equivalent of _strategic nuclear weapons."_

There was a loud creak of steel from the front of the convoy, and then an even louder hiss of steam brakes. "Oh - that's our cue," Mari said brightly.

Asuka frowned, following Mari as the other pilot began walking up to the convoy engines. "'Our'?"

"Hell yeah! I don't have to be on my way until… seven in the evening, I think; Baal is a speedy bitch in the water or out. Section Two will make sure I'm back here on time anyway." Mari's cat-mouthed expression crept across her face. "I wanna enjoy Tokyo-3 for a bit. Maybe meet the other pilot you're hiding around here."

"We're not _hiding_ her." Mari hauled herself up into the rear compartment of the far left engine, and Asuka followed. "The First is standing by in the event of an angel attack on NERV-J headquarters. And besides, you don't want to meet her."

Mari tilted her head. "Why's that?" She asked. "Don't tell me you've managed to start a vendetta with someone in just a week, princess. I know you're… prickly, but you really need to -"

"No! Jeez, calm down. In her case, I don't think I could fuel a grudge against me if I _tried."_ Asuka rolled her eyes. "I can say one good thing about her - during the angel attack, she had the balls to ask someone to _carry_ her into the entry plug because she was too badly injured to crawl off the gottverdammt _medical gurney._ But that's where the list of positive attributes ends."

Mari raised an eyebrow. "And the negatives?"

"Practically none of those either! The girl barely even seems to have a personality!" Asuka was practically fuming. "You could replace her with a fucking robot programmed to say ' _yes, sir'_ in an emotionless drone and nobody would know the difference!"

"Hmm." Mari seemed to have something on her mind. "Are you _sure_ you're not being unfair? She must have _something_ else going on."

"Maybe. I doubt it. I don't even think she goes to school."

Mari grinned like a cat. "Is she _cute,_ princess?" She asked, her tone sly.

"Eww, _fuck_ no!" Asuka grimaced, gesturing to her face. "She's pale as a corpse, dyes her hair _blue_ and has these freaky vampire eyes. There's nothing even remotely attractive about her!"

"Ahh. I see," Mari replied, as if Asuka's description had been some sort of great revelation.

"Why are you even asking me? I don't even swing that way, four eyes. You'd know better than me!"

"I dunno, you really seem to have a bug up your ass about her. I don't see how she could have pissed you off so much just by being quiet - especially in under a week, unless you're seeing her _every day_ or something."

"… only twice so far," Asuka admitted. "When the angel attacked, and during a harmonics test on Thursday."

"You had a harmonics test already? Jesus, princess. Did you _ask_ them to or something?"

"Of course I did - I take piloting _seriously,_ four eyes. And besides, Dr. Akagi wasn't exactly reluctant. That woman loves data more than oxygen."

"Anyway! Let's not get sidetracked." Mari swayed as the rail convoy hit a turn, but steadied herself. "What is it, exactly, that bothers you so much about the First Child?"

Asuka turned to look out the window.

"Hey, none of that. As your _illustrious_ big sister I have the right to harass you until you tell me what's wrong." Mari poked Asuka's shoulder. "Come on, princess."

 _Get fucked, four eyes. Some things don't bear talking about._ "That pun was never funny, Mari."

And then Asuka squeaked as a pair of neoprene-clad arms wrapped tightly around her - the bulky wrist attachments digging rather aggressively into her ribs - and her nose was assaulted with an intense smell of LCL.

"Ahh! Get the hell off me, four eyes!" Asuka squirmed, but Mari's grip was surprisingly strong. "I said, no hugs until you've showered!"

"If you won't talk to me, my honor demands I hug you. It's in the sister code. Sorry, princess, nothing I can do."

"You fucking made that up!"

"What, you want me to pull out my little booklet? I have it on me. I laminated it to be LCL-proof."

"You _wrote_ that fucking booklet! You made up the entire concept of this 'sister code' bullshit!"

Curiously enough, Mari did not reply. The sounds of the engine slowly chugging along filled the cramped room.

Asuka squirmed again, trying to slam her head back into Mari's face, but the other pilot's height made this a losing proposition. "Are you just gonna keep hugging me until I crack?" Asuka whined. Mari merely hummed in response.

The engines _chugged_ as they went over a join in the rails, and the floor swayed slightly. A number of small metallic noises echoed from various angles around the huge convoy.

After a few minutes Mari leaned her chin on top of Asuka's head, clearly intending to get comfortable in that position. Asuka gritted her teeth and clenched her fists, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly.

"… she's like a _doll,_ alright?" Asuka managed. "Silent, expressionless, obedient - her skin even _looks_ like porcelain, and the way she stares at you with those dead, scarlet eyes - I just, I - I can't fucking take it. You know my… you know I don't like dolls, Mari."

 _To put it extremely mildly,_ she mentally finished, unable to bring herself to say it. Mari would know what she meant anyway.

"Hmm." Mari tightened her hug - very slightly, but enough to be perceptible. "Tricky situation you've got there, princess."

Asuka twisted, and finally, Mari's grip loosened.

"Okay, she makes you uncomfortable. But can you…" Mari paused for a minute, considering her words carefully. "If you're under fire, can you hand her a prog-knife and then turn your back?"

Asuka's eyes narrowed.

" _P… please wheel me up to… the upper bridge. A tech will lift me into the, the plug."_

" _You need not have worried. I can be replaced."_

Asuka bit the inside of her lip. "You know," she said softly, "I think I probably can."

"Well then, you don't need to like her. If you can work with her on deployment, that's enough." Mari grinned. "You'll make a fine squad leader yet, princess."

 **X-X-X**

 _This body is 10.5 years old and its heart has beat -_

" _All personnel be advised: the coolant pool is being completely drained in T minus 120 seconds. Land all cage boats."_

 _What?_

Rei pushed herself to her feet.

" _Clear the umbilicals in Holding Cage Two. All non-essential personnel are to clear the upper access walkways."_

 _What is going on?_

A number of orange-clad technicians dashed across the umbilical bridge of Cage One, heading for the ladders to the higher catwalks. None paid any mind to the diminutive pilot as they passed.

" _Supercargo elevator landing in T minus 180 seconds. Draining the coolant pool."_

A deep, rumbling rushing filled the cage, and the liquid level of the coolant pool started to lower.

Rei gazed passively at the proceedings. A series of loud metallic noises sounded from beyond the wall to Unit 01's right - Holding Cage Two, a part of the holding facility that had lain defunct since its construction along with cages Three through Nine.

" _Lifting umbilical equipment in Cage Two."_ Several warning alarms blared, and a deep, metallic booming noise filled the cage zone. " _Stand by for supercargo rail activation. Track debris may cause delays."_

The last of the coolant drained from the floor of the cage, but for the occasional puddles here and there. Unit 01's armor glistened where the liquid clung to the painted ADNR.

 _The supercargo elevator is going all the way to the cages for the first time in this facility's history, and it was designed to bring in Evangelion units from the rail depot if necessary. The cage pool has been drained. Holding Cage Two has been cleared of obstructive hardware._

 _Are we receiving… a new unit?_ Rei looked over at the far wall of the cage. _If so, then shortly -_

" _All personnel, brace for tremors. Opening the cage assembly in ten. Nine. Eight -"_

 _Definitely a new unit, then. Presumably for the Second Child to pilot. I expect this was why they were in New Yokosuka today._

The air split with an impossibly loud _boom,_ reverberating through the cage walls like the hammer of a god. It was followed by a series of sharp clackings as hydraulic lock bolts along the side walls came undone.

There was a low yet massive groaning of steel, and the umbilical bridge in cage one began to shake. Rei widened her stance and continued watching.

And then, finally, the walls slid back.

The far wall of the cage receded and the forward half of each side-wall followed, lifted forwards and upwards on a huge hinged swing by the immense cage assembly jacks. From behind - the direction the deployment catapults lay in - the cage doors could open individually, but this was not the case from the front; the forward assembly of the cages was a single titanic unit that had to be lifted all in one go.

Beyond where the walls had stood, a series of floodlights flickered on - revealing the ten supercargo rail tracks, leading from the elevator landing zone back to the cages. The same tracks also extended behind the Evas, ready to carry them to the catapults at mere moments' notice.

 _The floor platform of Cage Two has not shifted out. How will they move the new unit in?_

" _Supercargo elevator arriving now."_

There was a whistling and the high-pitched noise of steel brakes on steel rails - and at a rate which could only _just_ be called a controlled speed, the massive elevator platform came into view from the distant ceiling. It decelerated to slide neatly into the landing zone, causing moderate tremors in the cage area's reinforced-concrete superstructure.

Rei didn't feel impulses often, and for her to act on one was almost unheard of - but she _felt_ herself twitch at the sight.

 _That must surely be the most hideous Evangelion unit ever made._

The four-eyed titan was manned and awake, standing upright on the platform instead of lying inactive like procedure recommended. Its pose was not shaken by the rapid stop, and indeed, it seemed almost defiant.

 _There's so much… so much color. So much awful, awful color._

The Evangelion unit was clad, from boot to pauldron wing, in brilliant red - a full eighty meters of scarlet armor, gleaming with the lustre of new paint and polish under the stark fluorescent lighting. On the left side of its gorget, the numerals '02' sat below the callsign tag - MOLOCH - painted in a striking high-contrast green.

" _Cage Two umbilicals are lifted, caging locks open and primed, supercargo rails are clear. Evangelion Unit Two, you are cleared to dock."_

The Eva's external speakers crackled, and the unmistakable voice of Asuka Langley Soryu echoed through the caging area. " _About time Moloch took her place here!"_

 _If her unit is safe to activate, why wasn't it brought in through a deployment and retrieval elevator? That would have been easier than opening the entire cage assembly, surely._

The distance from the elevator to the cage was a few short steps for an Evangelion, and Unit 02 crossed it quickly - turning and backing into the cage locks in a single fluid motion, moving with a grace Rei had never expected to see from such a colossus.

 _Her sync rate must be very high, to move her unit like that._

" _Unit Two is docked. Closing lock bolts now. Beginning re-seal of the assembly."_

Another titanic groan sounded as the forward assembly began to slide back into place. The maroon coolant began to pool around the Evangelions' feet as the walls reconnected.

And finally, Holding Cage One was a single room once more. Rei remained staring at the far wall.

 _Unsightly though it may be, a third Evangelion is substantial addition to our forces here. And if Pilot Soryu's sync rate is as high as that performance suggests, she is a very capable pilot indeed._

 _Despite her distasteful personality and penchant for insubordination, if the angels increase in power as the Commander predicts, it seems her expertise will be indispensable._

Rei sat back down on the umbilical bridge and idly watched the coolant creeping back up towards her.

 _This body is 10.5 years old and its heart has beat 441,724,102 times…_

 **X-X-X**


	4. The wrath of the Sun of God

**X-X-X **

**CHAPTER 4**

 **X-X-X **

"So. How is it coming along?"

Ritsuko straightened, turning her back to her project - an Evangelion entry plug, the substantial bulk of which currently dominated her 'special' workshop in Terminal Dogma. Unlike most entry plugs, this one was painted a dark red.

"Still an enormous tangle of problems, sir." Ritsuko kept her voice neutral. "If you want a detailed progress report, you'll have to wait until this evening. I haven't had time to compile my findings yet."

Gendo didn't move a muscle, apparently preferring to remain standing in the doorway. "What has caused the delay?"

"Well, interruptions don't exactly help," Ritsuko deadpanned.

Gendo didn't visibly react. _The uptight bastard used to have a sense of humor,_ Ritsuko grumbled internally. _I know I'm hardly a paragon of good cheer, but did he have to turn into a goddamn machine when his wife was taken?_

"Anyway, all sorts of things have been getting in my way," Ritsuko continued. "There's the fact that I'm also on call for tech support on the S2 project. There's the fact that you won't let me bring my assistant down here - and by the way, I still think I could use Maya's help without giving the game away. There's the fact that I can't risk running tests on actual units, instead of simulations. At the core of it, though, is a simple and disgustingly metaphysical problem."

Gendo tilted his head, almost imperceptibly.

"The problem is that the dummy plug is a machine, and the Evangelions _aren't_ machines." Ritsuko straightened her glasses. "As you know better than most, Evas have souls. All evidence - and I do mean _all;_ I've gone through every byte of data produced since Gehirn - says that it takes another soul to sync with them. A computer replica, a digital soul? It effectively can't be done, at least with the resources I have. I'd need a computer comparable to the MAGI, dedicated to the dummy plug and _nothing_ else, to even come close to a guarantee."

Gendo's expression, predictably, did not change - although he did put his hands in his coat pockets, an oddly deliberate gesture.

 _Well, that wasn't what he wanted to hear. It must suck for him that I'm irreplaceable._ Ritsuko suppressed the urge to smile. _With Mother and Yui and Kyoko all dead or gone, there aren't exactly a lot of angelic-biotech and metaphysical engineering specialists left in the world._

"Do you have a proposed solution?" Gendo asked, softly. It carried a hint of warning to it.

"As a matter of fact, yes, I do." This time, Ritsuko let herself smile. "Let me use the physical backups as well as the data."

" _No."_ His voice was more forceful than Ritsuko had heard from him in years.

"Sir, hear me out. I don't need _that_ soul - I don't think that would even work if I tried." It was Ritsuko's turn to put her hands in her pockets, although her bleach-white lab coat was considerably different from Gendo's officer uniform. "I just think I'd have a better chance faking it with a warm body, than with false link electrodes and LCL treatments. And - conveniently enough - those backups are warm bodies with blank minds."

Gendo didn't reply, or move at all, for nearly a full minute. Ritsuko felt the sweat accruing on her skin. _Damn, the ventilation really sucks down here…_

"Alright," Gendo said at last. "You are authorized to use _one_ physical backup. Do not break it."

 _Oh, don't pretend that's from a place of caution. You made ninety-eight backups - you have plenty to spare._

"I'll treat it like spun glass." Ritsuko's smile widened, and she decided to try pushing her luck. "Shall I head to the tank and pick out one I like, then?"

"No need. One will be selected and brought to your workshop."

 _Translation: stay the hell out of my inner sanctum. Paranoid much, commander? Not that I have room to talk…_

"I look forward to it, Commander. Hopefully, I'll have some progress to report soon."

"See that you do." Gendo turned and walked away. The door slid shut behind him.

 _He's probably just mad that I keep finding and destroying his bugs._ Ritsuko turned back to the red entry plug. _Oh well… I've got plenty of work ahead of me. Might as well get busy._

 **X-X-X**

"I didn't think the First even went to school."

Shinji looked up from his food, following Asuka's gaze over to where Rei was sitting. True to form, she was staring idly out the window; apparently she felt no need to actually _eat_ during lunch periods.

Asuka frowned as she noticed the sunlight reflecting off of two tiny bracelets on Rei's wrist. _Jewelry? Can't be, not on her… besides, those look too small to be decorative. Maybe they're a location tracker for the Commander or something. That'd be creepy enough for her, right?_

"Well, she _is_ our age," Shinji offered. "I'm pretty sure she's required to, by law."

"True, I guess," Asuka groused. "She just seems like such a… robot. Hell, she doesn't even pay much attention - it's like this is just something to fill her time while she's waiting for NERV to whistle."

Shinji furrowed his brow. "You really… don't get along with her, do you?" He said tentatively.

"Not at all. But nevermind that." The German girl leaned back in her seat. "I'm tired of talking about the First. She doesn't bear wasting thoughts on."

"Well… that's unfortunate, because you're going to see her this afternoon."

Asuka's gaze snapped back to Shinji, and then she rolled her eyes and groaned. "Oh, fuck. Sync test?"

"Sync test."

" _Scheisse!"_ Asuka hissed. "I love piloting Eva, but Dr. Akagi is fucking _insatiable._ Three sync tests in one week? _One_ was a lot, back in Germany!"

"Misato told me it'd be every other day, actually, so…" Shinji scratched the back of his head, evidently trying to look apologetic. "Three and a half tests a week."

" _Gott im Himmel,"_ Asuka groaned. "How are you so stone faced about that, anyway? You're a _conscript._ I'd expect you to complain harder than anyone."

Shinji looked down. "W-well," he stuttered. "I'm, well, I'm used to people telling me what to do. Besides, it's not like I really had anything else planned after school."

 _Each separate sentence of that was gottverdammt pathetic. Together…_ "Third, that's the most pathetic thing I think I've ever heard." Asuka gave him a withering look. "It's like you aren't even _interested_ in growing a spine."

Shinji just looked away without answering, and Asuka ground her teeth. _At this point, I don't even know if the First is actually worse! One's a silent android, the other a whiny wimp - and both are pliant, spineless dolls!_

"… hey, Soryu…"

Asuka looked back up. "Huh? What? And call me Asuka, that Japanese last name thing is stupid."

Shinji ignored the cultural jab. "Did you…" he paused, pressing the heel of his hand against the side of his head. "Before Misato picked us up, that day. Did you hear the angel… say something?"

A jolt of nervousness skittered down Asuka's spine, but she swallowed the tension. "You heard it too?" She asked, her tone guarded. _I was afraid I'd imagined it._

" 'Your weapons cannot destroy me,' " Shinji recited. "I suppose it was almost right, too. It soaked up a nuke! It took a rampaging monster with a magic force field to kill it."

Asuka furrowed her brow in confusion. "You understood it?"

Now it was Shinji's turn to look confused. "That's… what it said. Exactly that."

"That's funny," Asuka replied, slowly and carefully. "Because I heard something to a similar effect… but in pitch perfect German."

There was a tense silence, broken only by the classroom chatter around them. Shinji looked away first.

Asuka glanced over to Rei - and was surprised to see the pair of red eyes staring right at her and Shinji. _Was she listening? Why the hell would the android be interested, anyway?_ But even as she thought it, Rei was turning away, her expressionless gaze once again directed out the classroom window.

 _Yeesh. What a weirdo._

"… do you think that means anything?"

"What?" Asuka blinked. "Well, yeah. If they talk, odds are that they think. If they think, some are going to be smarter than others. And since I _can't_ imagine the third angel being the brightest example of the species, I guess we need to be ready to fight angels that are cunning as well as strong."

Shinji huffed softly, his voice _almost_ sounding frustrated. "I meant that… we fight because we don't understand each other, right?" He shook his head. "If they can speak human languages, shouldn't we make efforts to communicate with them?"

"I'm pretty sure what they speak is some kind of psionic projection, unless you know anyone _else_ who can speak Japanese and German _at the same time."_ Asuka frowned. "And you're wrong. Communication isn't the issue. We fight them because they attack us - they come to our home, they fight us in the streets of our own city. As far as we know, they want to annihilate the human race. What other reason do we _need_ to raise arms against them?"

Shinji looked away, idly poking at his food. "I never thought of it that way."

"Of course you didn't." Asuka snorted. "Peace, love, communication is the answer. You'd make a good hippie."

The other pilot sighed. "Whatever you say, Soryu."

 _Yeah, don't try to deny it._

"Anyway," Asuka began. "Have you ever wondered -"

She was cut off by a sharp ringing sound, and her phone vibrating. She looked down, startled. _I thought I put it on silent. What the hell is it ringing for?_

When she picked it up, however, it wasn't displaying the _incoming call_ screen. It was displaying nothing but the NERV logo and the words "EMERGENCY" in red lettering on a black background.

Only then did the slowly rising wail of an air raid siren register in her ears.

"An angel is attacking," came a soft voice. "A vehicle from Section Two will be waiting for us at the gates of the school."

Asuka looked up, but Rei was already sprinting _\- sprinting -_ towards the door of the classroom. Around them, the other students were standing up and shuffling after her in a much more relaxed evacuation pattern.

Shinji looked at Asuka, an uncertain expression on his face. "Well… duty calls, I guess?"

Asuka smirked. "Hey, that's the spirit. I'll make a pilot of you yet, Shinji."

 **X-X-X **

Gendo hung up the red phone. He had not actually been on a call, but he liked to maintain at least the _appearance_ of answering to higher powers.

"The object has been titled Shamshel, the Fifth Angel." He laced his fingers once more, leaning forward over his elevated desk. "Captain Katsuragi, you have command of the defense operation."

Below, on the ops deck of the Central Dogma Control Room, Misato nodded and turned back to the bridge bunnies.

"All three pilots are en route," Hyuga announced. "ETA eight minutes to their arrival."

"Give me a visual on our target," Misato ordered.

The big screen flickered, blinking to a spy plane view above the Pacific Ocean. The angel hovered a scant few meters from the ocean surface as it flew steadily towards Japan.

"It's bigger," Fuyutsuki said quietly.

"More elegantly built, too," Gendo murmured back. "I have little doubt it's more powerful."

 _Possibly powerful enough to deploy seraphim. Fortunately, our force numbers three Evangelion units this time, not just one._

The angel was a sleek beast; where Sachiel had been a hideously disproportioned humanoid, Shamshel was a more like an insect - and one that needed no wings. It was shaped remarkably like a reversed torpedo, albeit a gently undulating one. Its head and what appeared to be two vestigial legs were tucked into a rigid section of its carapace at the front of the body.

"Hold on," Maya said abruptly. "I'm picking up more blue patterns at other points in our detector grid! There are four of them. Three north of the first, one south, all on a trajectory straight to Tokyo-3."

"Give me more," Misato snapped. "Tell me what we're facing, dammit."

"Their patterns are weaker, so they should be smaller," Maya rattled off. "Or have weaker AT fields, at least. We're currently estimating each smaller signature to rate about 48% of the larger angel in terms of threat level. Working on visual confirmation."

The view of the angel shrank slightly, and four smaller feeds sprang up beside it.

 _There they are. My guess that it was a deficiency on Sachiel's part was correct._ Gendo slid another pill from his pocket.

The seraphs looked essentially like smaller versions of the larger angel, undulating slightly faster and with a much more narrow profile - more snakelike than the wide-bodied angel itself. Most notably, each appeared to have only one 'leg', situated centrally just below the head.

"The pilots have entered NERV headquarters," Aoba called. "They're being taken straight to the cages. Unless you want to brief them first, Captain?"

"No. That'd take too long." Misato glared at the screen. "I want to intercept these ones before they make it to Tokyo-3, if we can. Get the pilots into entry plugs as fast as humanly possible."

 **X-X-X**

Despite her grudge, Asuka had to admit that the First Child could move when it mattered. The normally unassuming and somewhat lethargic girl had power-walked with the longest strides her frame could sustain to the locker that was _geometrically_ closest to the locker room door, and had peeled out of her school uniform so fast that Asuka would have sworn she must have ripped it somewhere.

Rei's plugsuit was bone-white. _I don't know what I expected. Stock human, stock plugsuit._

In fact, the plugsuit _did_ have some customizations. There were unidentifiable attachments on the upper ribs, and a surprisingly extensive pattern of what looked like primitive link nodes on her back and arms. _I guess if her Eva is outdated, her plugsuit would be outdated to match?_

Asuka had barely pulled her own plugsuit up to her shoulders by the time Rei was striding to the elevator on the other side of the room.

 _Seeing her all poised and ready is surreal. Even more so, when she's in what would in any other context be called fetish gear._

 _Okay. Come on, Asuka. She's creepy, but you're about to step into battle together. You can come up with_ _something_ _._

"Hey, First," she called, as she locked the plugsuit collar around her neck.

Rei paused as if frozen in place, her hand hovering over the button to open the elevator door. Slowly, without moving in any other way, she turned her head to glance over her shoulder.

Asuka noted a twitch of the girl's eyelid as the red eyes appraised her figure, taking in the shades of scarlet, burgundy and maroon that shaded her plugsuit. _Wow, was that an expression? I'm counting it. I was beginning to wonder if her face really was porcelain!_

"… good luck out there," Asuka managed, fighting down the urge to bite her tongue. She pressed the compression trigger on her plugsuit's enlarged wrist cuff, and the baggy neoprene abruptly shrank, form-fitting itself against her. _One of these days, I will find out how it does that. I know it's mostly not actual neoprene - maybe the compression is some esoteric function of the ultra-tech polymer weaves -_

"Luck?" Rei murmured, tonelessly as ever.

"Argh!" Asuka ground the heel of her palm against her brow. "Fucking… forget it! Just try not to die, okay?!"

Rei blinked. Then she blinked again. _Shit, did I break the dolly? I hope it doesn't come out of my paycheck if I have to replace her._ Asuka rolled her eyes and strode forward until she was standing beside Rei - who still had not moved.

"Well? The elevator's not going to call itself. We're on a schedule here!"

Rei seemed to jolt out of whatever confused daze she had been in, and hit the button. A scant three seconds later, and the elevator doors opened. Asuka stepped inside, and Rei followed - her pace strangely subdued, given her wild alacrity earlier.

"Cages!" Asuka called out. The elevator started to move, slowly at first, but rapidly gaining speed as it shot downwards to the bottom floor of Central Dogma.

"I…" Rei's voice halted. Asuka turned her head sharply - unprovoked speech from Rei was a rare occurrence. "I will make an effort to avoid this body's termination," she managed at last.

Asuka narrowed her eyes at the other pilot. _Stone faced as ever… but her pupils are pinpricks. Did that seriously stress her that much?_ "Well don't sprain your cerebellum thinking too hard about it," she retorted.

"Sprain my -?"

" _Central Dogma, level zero: Evangelion Cage Facility."_ The elevator door slid open - greeting them with flashing red alarm light and the sound of blaring klaxons.

Asuka didn't wait for Rei to finish - nor did the other pilot make an attempt to. Both sprinted full-tilt out into the wide hallway; Rei skidded to a stop in front of the cage zero door, while Asuka raced to cover the extra distance.

 _Where's Shinji?_ Asuka turned hard as she ran, physically colliding with the cage two door before the sensor could auto-open it. _Probably beat us to it. He's got a locker room to himself, so he didn't get distracted by the First's weirdness._

Asuka stepped out onto the upper bridge above Evangelion Unit 02. The entry plug was already waiting in place, and the technicians had cleared the lower umbilical bridge. The orange-clad workers stood aside the minute they noticed her presence.

 _That's right! Ace pilot coming through, bitches! It's time to save the world!_

 **X-X-X **

" _This attacker, The Fifth Angel, has been termed Shamshel."_ Misato's voice was clipped and rapid. " _Unlike Sachiel, this angel appears to be accompanied by a force of four other entities - telemetry suggests they are physically similar to the angel itself, but smaller and weaker. They have been termed seraphim."_

 _Great, multiple targets. That complicates things._ Asuka could feel her hands squeezing and releasing the control yokes in a rhythm, discharging nervous energy. She could also feel the hands of the beast she was now part of, mimicking the motion near-perfectly. _On the other hand, talk about opportunities to rack up and jack up a kill count!_

" _Because there are multiple enemies in this assault, we will be deploying you in a scattered pattern. Moloch - you'll be deployed directly east, near the coast. You'll be launched at the eastern edge of the Tokyo-3 metro zone, and from there it should be a short jog east at level three speeds. Confirm."_

Asuka nodded slightly, opening her squad radio channel with a thought. " _Ja,_ understood."

" _Asherah will be deployed at the northeast coast. You'll have a longer distance to cover from the catapult, so I recommend sprinting at level two speeds and reducing power consumption when you arrive. Confirm."_

With a beep, a 'sound only' window appeared on Asuka's HUD - or rather, on the spherical space around her head where information from the Eva's systems was projected directly into her sensory cortex. " _Yes,"_ Rei's soft voice answered.

" _Ishtar will be deployed within Tokyo-3. Since he carried the last battle by himself, Shinji gets the light rearguard duty today. You'll launch to Central 3rd Street and take position there. Confirm."_

A window containing a side view of Shinji's despondent face appeared. " _Understood."_

 _Huh, Shinji seems kind of out of it. I know him and Misato weren't getting along too well earlier… wonder if there's a connection…_

" _All units: launch!"_

The rippling shock of the sudden acceleration shook both of Asuka's bodies, and the entry plug's seating gyroscopes shuddered. Her human body sucked a deep lungful of the thick orange liquid.

 _LCL smells like shit, but I'm a fan of the oxygen density. It's like an espresso shot with every breath._

There was another shift and shudder as the whiplash-like acceleration inverted, decelerating rapidly -

And the catapults reached the surface. The elevator clamps released, and Asuka concentrated.

 _Umbilical cable detached; reactor online. Power output level three: 287:49 hours to shutdown._

Asuka began walking east across the sparse suburban landscape, Unit 02's forty-meter legs making strides that ate up the distance rapidly. In her rear view she could see Unit 01 taking position in the urban zone, and further back, the distant figure of Unit 00 sprinting on an oblique trajectory.

There was no need for Unit 02 to sprint, though, and Asuka welcomed the power conservation. At a brisk walk, an Evangelion could still move at over fifty miles per hour - that, combined with the fact she had no obligation to follow roads, meant it took her less than ten minutes in all to reach the coast.

The Pacific Ocean glittered in the sunlight of the eternal summer. Asuka hung back from the beach itself, dropping Unit 02 into a ready crouch behind the second row of dunes.

 _No need to risk getting knocked into the water when I don't have aquatic combat gear. Besides, I hate how sand feels under Moloch's boots - way too slippery. She's too heavy for that scheisse._

Asuka closed her eyes, taking her hands off the control yokes. She dropped her internal reactor to output level four, and opened her squad comm. "Moloch, in position," she said, her voice unusually calm.

" _Roger, Moloch. ETA on the first target is three minutes and forty seconds."_ Misato's voice clicked off.

 _Stay cool, Asuka. Be like a blade. Cold, sharp, focused._ The German pilot took a deep breath of LCL. _Remember the hard mode simulations with Mari? Think of it like that._

… _except if I die here, I die for real._

 _Psh, I'm not going to die. I'm the best there is. Look at those harmonic readings - 79.8% synchronicity with .2% variance, sixty-four waveform convergence points, 259 plus or minus 6 green links active. I've spent nine years training for this - more than half my life._

 _I'm not going to die._

 _I'm not._

Asuka opened her eyes, wrapping her hands around the control yokes once more and hefting her APFSDS Gauss "pallet" rifle. She narrowed all six of her eyes at the horizon, and the idyllic blue of the sea gleamed back at her.

 _Doesn't really look all that different to the Atlantic, from here. On a sunny day, they're both just massive expanses of glittering blue…_

Then her expression changed from scrutiny to full alertness. "Contact," Asuka barked. "I've got a visual. It's on the horizon, heading this way. Transmitting now."

The lone speck on the horizon grew, and two more appeared behind it. One of the second wave was larger than the other.

"I think I have a visual on Shamshel itself. Trajectory is slightly to my north."

" _Acknowledged, Moloch. The Fifth Angel is on a trajectory between our two defense points. Asherah, Ishtar, confirm."_

" _Yes."_

" _Confirmed."_

Asuka quirked her eyebrow. _The fifth angel. Fifth. Sachiel was the third angel… I'd bet money that whatever secret scheisse Mari is guarding has to do with the fourth._

" _Moloch, you're looking at less than sixty seconds until the leading seraph is within range. Look alive."_

"You don't have to hold my _hand,_ Misato," Asuka grumbled back. "I've got this."

" _No back talk on the battlefield, pilot."_ Misato didn't give Asuka a chance to drop an indignant response. " _Asherah, do you have a visual?"_

" _Not yet."_ Rei's voice was as soft as ever, but it carried a great deal more focus than usual.

Asuka raised her rifle, bracing its colossal stock against her equally colossal shoulder. The peripheral nervous system links were configured for targeting optimization, and the gun was fully loaded and charged.

"… just… a little closer…"

Asuka's reticles turned red, and she slammed the trigger down.

The snapping bark of hypersonic projectiles split the quiet beachfront air. The leading seraph twitched, halting suddenly and drawing itself up.

" _Mein Gott,_ they're ugly motherfuckers. Like the world's scariest sex toy… eww."

" _Asuka, squad comm is not for trivialities."_

"That's _Pilot Soryu_ when I'm in Moloch," Asuka murmured back. "Unless you want me to call you _Misato_ instead of _Captain."_

" _You literally just -"_ Misato stopped abruptly. " _Shit, the trailing targets are changing course. Intercept!"_

The Angel itself suddenly picked up speed, and the other seraph broke off the approach, heading north. The seraph that Asuka's salvo clipped lowered itself back into movement configuration, then began approaching at a similar speed increase.

" _Scheisse."_ Asuka opened the squad comm again. "Rei - er, Asherah, at least one more seraph is heading your way!"

" _Yes."_

 _Which is practically all she fucking knows how to say… dammit._ Asuka fired another short burst of high velocity rounds at the approaching seraph, but it ducked and weaved, evading the worst of the salvo - and its AT field effortlessly blocked the rest. _Scheisse, where are the others? Shamshel and four seraphim… I've only seen two…_

" _Contact,"_ Rei said - just a trace faster and sharper than her voice usually sounded.

 _Enough of this!_ Asuka shifted her reactor to output level one, and concentrated her AT augments. Then she lifted the rifle a third time, switching its operation to semiautomatic.

An almost-invisible thread of shimmering orange light tracked each bullet as they crossed the phase-space tunnel - and the seraph's AT field did nothing against them this time. The armor-piercing flechettes tore through its lower body and head chitin, and an unearthly scream echoed over the beach.

' _Output Level 1: 19:35 minutes to shutdown. 4:52 minutes to red line.'_

The seraph reached the beach and reared itself again, looking about as angry as a faceless alien can. Blue blood dripped from several wounds where Asuka's marksmanship had struck true.

Its 'leg' _\- I can think of other anatomical comparisons for that appendage, personally -_ twitched, and then glowed.

Asuka barely threw herself aside in time. The whip-like plasma arc slashed a remarkably beautiful wave-like pattern of glass and smoking, scorched dunegrass into the terrain where she had crouched a moment prior.

 _It has a fucking plasma whip. Okay, breathe. You've got this, Asuka. Stay cool._

The seraph twisted to face her again. Asuka pushed her AT field forward, slammed the gun mode to fully automatic and fired.

The shower of point blank flechettes shredded the seraph's flesh, ripping into the body just below the head. Blue blood and chunks of flesh went flying.

A second later, the plasma whip flashed again. The pallet rifle disintegrated into glowing pieces, and Asuka bit the inside of her cheek as the tail of the whip wrapped around her hand.

" _GOTT-IM-FUCKING-HIMMEL!"_

It was like she'd grabbed a moving band saw - a ripping, burning lash of agony. She recoiled, jerking her hand away violently and stumbling back a few paces.

Her right gauntlet was a lost cause. The palms and fingers of an evangelion were very lightly armored to allow for grip, and what little ADNR could be found was poor defence against an overwhelming assault of eldritch energy. The flesh under the armor was smoking and scorched, although the burn was shallow.

 _Lost my gun. This is a melee now, and the alien arschloch has a lot more range than I do in that regard…_

The whip lashed out again. Asuka ducked to the right, and the weapon clipped her shoulder instead of slashing her torso; she barely felt the assault through the much thicker pauldron armor.

 _Wait, what's that?_

The last of the pallet rifle's clip had gone into Asuka's volley at the center mass just below the head - and, having already sustained some damage, the seraph's torso looked like blue-tinted hamburger meat. Underneath the mangled alien flesh was something hard, and red, like a huge round garnet -

 _It's the core!_ Asuka realized with a start. _That's its heart, its weak spot! I can kill it!_

She reached for her right prog-knife. The seraph was faster.

Plasma coiled around her vambrace before her hand was even halfway to her pauldron wing. The hyperdiamond armor plates began to crack and glow as the monster pulled her arm towards it.

 _Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck it hurts, it fucking HURTS._ She reached up with her free hand. _I'm not going down to a gottverdammt flying trouser snake armed with something out of bad science fiction! I'll fucking kill you left handed!_

Asuka pulled her trapped arm, hauling the seraph towards her. Her progressive knife activated in her other hand, its blade giving off the familiar glow and high-pitched whine. She stepped forward, thrusting her left hand and pulling on her right in the same motion.

An unearthly scream split the air, and Asuka's vision dissolved into a cascade of sparks. The thing twisted, squirmed - and fell still.

Slowly, the searing burn in Asuka's forearm began to fade.

 _Moloch's forearm. Not mine. My arm is fine, my hand is fine._ She began carefully dialling back her synchronization, trying to reduce the pain without losing her battle control. _So what if I got some cuts, anyway! Ace pilot one, aliens zero!_

Asuka straightened, shoving the inert corpse off her. The whip fiber, now cold and relatively harmless, was a painful ordeal to untangle her arm from - she bit the inside of her cheek yet again, this time yielding visible red trails in the LCL - but she pulled free relatively quickly. She rolled her shoulders and shifted her internal systems, dropping to output level two with more than two minutes to spare of overheat safety. Then, she opened the squad comm.

"Target eliminated," she managed. She'd intended to say it a good deal more triumphantly, but hadn't realized how hard she had been breathing. "Zone is clear. I… fuck. Who needs me? Wasn't Rei about to get dogpiled?"

" _Asherah is currently dealing with three seraphs, yes. Move to assist ASAP."_

 _Three? Scheisse._ "On my way." Asuka turned north, moving parallel to the coast line.

" _Affirmative, Moloch. It looked like you lost your rifle - are you armed?"_

"Still have both knives. I'll be fine."

" _Don't be an idiot, Asu- Pilot Soryu. We're sending two Chinooks with a new pallet rifle now, to rendezvous just before you reach Asherah."_

"… acknowledged," Asuka responded, a grudging note in her voice.

 **X-X-X **

When synced with Unit 00, Rei's idle thought process was left effectively freewheeling.

 _This body is roughly thirteen years old, but it is a difficult measure. It was grown in pieces._

 _This body has no heart, only a core, a core filled with bright light and fury._

To some, it might have been disconcerting, but Rei did not even register annoyance. Her mental discipline was noteworthy even during simple tests - on a battlefield, she might have been a machine.

She'd crouched behind a large hill, her pallet rifle locked and loaded. The seraphs' energy weapons made short work of buildings, but had a hard time slicing actual terrain.

 _They are not greatly intelligent, beyond responding to threats when they see them. Were I more heavily equipped, or backed by another Eva, outwitting them would be trivial. As it stands, they are substantially more challenging._

The extensive burns on her left arm and the side of her torso spoke of just how _much_ more challenging. Rei ignored the injuries easily. Even had it not been filtered through a 36.0% sync rate, the level of pain was insignificant compared to the shattered bones and conscious invasive surgery she was accustomed to enduring.

Rei cast her AT field, feeling out the area around and behind her meager cover.

 _There, there, and there. I cannot leave cover without stepping into the line of fire of two of them. I can face one easily, but guarding against two such weapons precludes returning fire._

The seraphs moved, and Rei watched them carefully through the arcane energy field.

 _One coming around - no, two -_

Rei lifted her pallet rifle and collected her AT field, hurling forward a shockwave of visible orange light. The leading seraph's own AT field was stripped away like so much tissue paper under the onslaught, and it bobbed in midair as if staggered.

Rei was already firing. The stream of slender, finned, hypersonic projectiles was like a chainsaw to the unprotected seraphim flesh, and the alien writhed under the assault.

Then - amid the flying droplets of blue blood and chunks of flesh - a bright glow appeared.

Struggling through her sub-par synchronicity, Rei lifted her left hand and caught the plasma whip. She twitched as her hand closed and the burning light wrapped around her wrist, its embrace painful enough to crack her cold facade.

 _Sloppy. I must be more disciplined._

Her right arm was shaking uncontrollably, but she managed to lift the pallet rifle. Her HUD reticle told her that, more or less, she was still on target.

Then the second seraph rounded the hill.

She didn't even get a chance to pull the trigger. The other whip flashed, and Rei had no time to react. Her vision flashed into white and a crackling hum filled her ears as the seraph's weapon coiled around her head.

In the entry plug, bubbles formed as the temperature began climbing rapidly. Rei convulsed, her smaller body coughing and swallowing LCL. The monster's grip was like being waterboarded with molten lead.

 _No! I will endure. I must._ Rei clung to her grip on the pallet rifle and the first seraph's weapon, despite every nerve in her body screaming at her to clutch her head. _My squad leader has ordered me to survive, and I will. I am stronger than this._

She raised the pallet rifle. Her ocular was still obscured by white-hot fire, but her grip on the other whip gave her a steady feedback on where at least one of the seraphs was standing. Bracing the rifle against her shoulder, she pointed and fired blind.

She was rewarded by a screech, and a sharp tug on the lash she was holding. She fired again, holding the trigger down until the gun clicked and went still.

The whip in her hand slackened, and the scorching heat of it began cooling.

 _It is dead, or… incapacitated._ Rei struggled to think through the searing pain in her skull. _Now I must face the other. Asherah is… too valuable to sacrifice, and I myself am under orders to endure._

The whip around her head abruptly loosened, and her vision - albeit dazed and unfocused, and fogged by the damaged cover on her ocular - returned. She staggered, but righted herself.

 _Two remain._

Her pallet rifle's clip was depleted. She ejected the spent one, and went to reload -

The seraph's lash flew again. Rei attempted to pull back her AT field into a defensive barrier, but Unit 00's augments responded sluggishly to her poorly synced commands, and the plasma cut through the energy shield before it could gather strength.

The line of incandescent pain struck her neck, coiling around it and holding fast. Her lilin body bit its tongue, fighting off the phantom sensation of being choked by a burning noose.

 _Asherah needs no breath, and my other form can still breathe freely. I must not fall._

Her shaky hand found one of the pallet rifle clips, and pulled it off her back cargo racks. She missed on the first try, but her second attempt slammed the magazine home.

Rei ratcheted the bolt and pressed the trigger. At point blank range, she barely needed to aim - even while convulsing in pain from the plasma whip around her neck, the majority of the flechettes found their target.

The seraph shrieked, retracting its whip and coasting backwards. Rei tried to lift the pallet rifle and sustain fire, only to find her right leg buckling under her. The earth shook as the Evangelion fell to its knees.

 _Focus._ Rei gritted her teeth. _Focus. Remain in control._

Half of her skin had been turned to well-done steak, her head and neck were all kinds of fucked up, and her eye was out of calibration - her HUD reticle would be useless. She ran through a mental list of the injuries, her thoughts clinical and detached, as she took a deep breath of LCL.

She managed to get one leg under her, but could tell that she wasn't going to manage the other. The Eva's already glitchy systems were taxed by her damage levels, and the strength to stand just wasn't there. Her reactor was only about 90 seconds away from red line.

The two blurred outlines of the seraphs began drifting forward again. Unable to retreat, Rei lifted her rifle once more.

 _My chances have become narrow, but I must not concede until death. I must make every possible effort._ She lifted the gun to her shoulder, lining up her ocular to iron-sight the huge weapon. _Whatever comes about, I am confident that at least one more of them will fall._

" _Hey, somebody order an ace pilot rescue?"_

Rei barely had time to register the video feed appearing on her HUD before a new AT field rippled across her own. There was a distinctive ripping staccato sound, and a shower of hypersonic flechettes rained down on the trailing alien.

She didn't need a second prompt. As the other Eva continued tearing into the less damaged seraph, Rei centered her iron sights on the blurry red outline of the other creature's core and pulled the trigger.

The first four APFSDS rounds deflected away. The fifth chipped the core. The sixth split it completely in two, and the seraph died, screaming and thrashing in its final moments.

Rei's gun clicked empty, and her burned hand precluded the possibility of easily reaching for another magazine. She set her rifle down, and began searching her back-mounted cargo racks for a fresh clip with her uninjured hand.

Her effort proved unnecessary.

The other Eva moved closer, her AT field strengthening from the proximity. With its defenses peeled completely away, the last seraph was helpless under the pallet rifle fire, and three short bursts saw it collapsing - dead as the rest of its kin.

Rei reached up to her Eva's face, crushing the ruined and graphite-stained diamond cover on her ocular. Freed of its obstruction, the synthetic eye easily recalibrated itself, and Rei's vision cleared.

She felt herself twitch.

The hideously scarlet figure of Unit 02 stood on the other side of the dead seraphs, her pallet rifle slung over her shoulder in a strangely jaunty pose.

" _Pretty good for a test jockey!"_ Asuka crowed. " _With that sync score I didn't think you'd get even one kill, let alone two!"_

Rei observed the comm feed from Asuka's Eva, her own feed still set to sound only. The German's shoulders were moving more than normal, and her right arm was shaking slightly - probably from pain feedback, given the ravaged state of her Eva's right vambrace and gauntlet.

 _She makes negative assumptions of my ability, but this fight was not effortless for her either._

" _Jeez, looks like they really fucked you up, First."_ Asuka's brow furrowed momentarily, before her expression returned to its usual smirk. " _You gonna make it back on your own?"_

"Yes," Rei replied, soft as ever. _Ten minutes or so in output level two will restore Asherah's strength. Then I will be able to walk. The pain feedback impaired my fine motor control, but will have negligible impact on walking._

" _That's good. Misato?… hey, Misato! You there?"_

There was silence on the line for a solid thirty seconds, then the video feed from the control room popped into existence beside Asuka's own feed. " _Sorry about that. I was… talking. With Shinji."_

" _Talking? About what?"_

" _Nothing you need to worry about, Pilot."_ Misato seemed on edge, her tone tense and her movements jumpy. " _The fifth angel has been defeated. Moloch, Asherah, return to NERV headquarters for debrief."_

Rei nodded slightly, despite having a sound-only comm feed. "Yes."

" _Yeah, yeah. Sure thing. See you in twenty or so."_ Asuka's comm clicked off - and Unit 02 began approaching Rei's position.

 _What? Why is she not returning to Tokyo-3 for retrieval?_

Unit 02 came to a stop, looming over Unit 00's kneeling form like a colossus. She stood motionless for a moment, then extended a scarlet-armored hand towards Unit 00.

" _Well? You wanna sit there until you recharge, or you wanna get back to base now? Your call, First."_

 **X-X-X **


	5. Aftermath of Shamshel

**X-X-X **

**CHAPTER 5**

 **X-X-X**

Asuka loved piloting Eva. The thrill of stepping into the war machine, the strength of moving the mighty beast as her own body, the prickling pressure in her skull and spine as the link activated - even the adrenaline rush of exhaling air and inhaling blood-like orange liquid. Practically everything about piloting was something to be relished, in her eyes.

 _I give her life, and she gives my life meaning._

She was, however, emphatically _not_ a fan of leaving drying LCL on herself a second longer than necessary.

The moment she'd coughed the last of the goo from her lungs, she'd bee-lined it back to the locker room, and had barely waited for the door to slide shut before decompressing her plugsuit and peeling it off. Ultimately, she left it discarded on the floor of the shower - the things were technically reusable, but in anticipation of the complex biosuits suffering systemic damage from link feedback, NERV had produced dozens of replacement plugsuits that could easily be calibrated and recolored to the pilot's preference.

Besides, the general lack of algae and dust suggested that even the pilot locker rooms got cleaned _sometime._ The cleaning staff would, surely, know what to do with a discarded red plugsuit.

The First Child didn't seem to share the sentiment, and Asuka raised her eyebrow at the sight of the smaller pilot stepping under the adjacent showerhead with her plugsuit still on.

"Uh, First, you might wanna -"

"I have completed my assigned mission, Pilot Soryu."

Asuka blinked. _What the hell is she on about?_ Rei simply stared back, her expression as blank as a sheet of cartridge paper despite the rivulets of orange-tinted water washing her hair into her eyes.

"… your… mission?" Asuka shook her head. "What the fuck are you on about, First?"

"You ordered me to 'try not to die out there.'" Rei's voice took on a strange inflection as she delivered the quote - although it was still soft and monotone, it sounded eerily similar to Asuka's voice.

Asuka pinched the bridge of her nose, and tried to ignore the rising headache. _It's just sync stress. The blue haired weirdo isn't helping, but the headache is from sync stress. Keep it together._

"Okay, I didn't order a goddamn thing, First, so don't put words in my mouth. I was just - fuck, what am I saying? You're so witless you don't even seem to understand wishing someone good luck!"

Rei blinked, _just_ slowly enough to look unrealistic - as if she'd actually made the conscious decision to close her eyelids for a second, rather than as a normal autonomic function. She still made no move to remove her plugsuit, or indeed even acknowledge that she was standing under a running shower.

"You told me not to die. You are my immediate superior, and we were both on duty. Therefore, it was an order."

Asuka let her head fall into her hands. " _Gott im Himmel,_ First. Much as I like the sound of it, what the hell makes you think I'm your superior officer?"

"You told a nurse in D wing." Rei's stiff posture and blank, carmine stare were beginning to unnerve Asuka. _No, no, they've been unnerving me from the very beginning…_

Asuka thought back to the last time she had been in D Wing: she'd been getting a checkup after close exposure to a thermonuclear fireball. But Rei hadn't been there, that time. The only time she'd seen Rei in D Wing was when - "really, First? I fucking lied to that nurse to get into your room. I'm nobody's squad leader."

Rei gazed silently back at the German pilot. Perhaps her expression changed - but if so, not in any way that a casual observer would catch. A microscopic hint of a shift in her eyelid, a hair's breadth of dilation in her scarlet-rimmed pupils, a millisecond of downward curvature in her lips - barely there at all, and gone before Asuka could look again to check.

After thirty seconds or so, Asuka caved, averting her own eyes from Rei's inscrutable stare. The blood-red eyes remained fixed in her direction, like cut glass.

 _What the hell is wrong with her? Is she thinking it over or something? Is she judging me? She probably is, the gottverdammt icy bitch. I bet she's never broken a rule in her miserable life -_

"Goodbye."

Asuka was left blinking in confusion as Rei - still dressed in her plugsuit, although now soaked more with water than LCL - turned away from her and began walking towards the door, her expressionless mask as immaculate as ever.

"Hey - fuck - where the hell do you think you're going, First?!"

"Commander Ikari is expecting me."

 _Was zur Hölle? We're supposed to debrief with Misato, not Shinji's wooden plank of a father._ "Wow, could you try any harder to be the commander's pet? It's like you _enjoy_ this doll act."

Rei paused, frozen mid-step for a second. Then she kept walking, stepping through the locker room door as it hissed open.

 _Yeah, you run along, dolly. Sucking up to your CO is hard work, after all! You don't become the fucking wonder girl if you don't jump on command!_ Asuka worked her second application of shampoo into her hair with deft fingers, rinsing it out as quickly as she could. _How old is the Commander, even? I'd have thought he was_ _way_ _past the age to be playing with dolls!_

A soft growl escaped her as she realized that her post-battle thrill had been effectively ruined. She slapped the 'water off' button with a little more force than necessary, and made her way over to her locker.

 **X-X-X **

Shinji had never been a social butterfly at the best of times. Despite this, Asuka couldn't help but notice he was more subdued than usual as Misato drove them home from NERV - a _lot_ more. His sullen withdrawal act could have given Rei's existential silence a run for its money.

 _He wasn't at the debriefing, either. The First was doing her thing, but why wasn't Shinji there?_

The moment they had arrived home, Shinji had cloistered himself in his room. Asuka hadn't yet trespassed to yell at him, but only because it wasn't his turn to make dinner. If she was going to suffer Misato's cooking anyway, it wasn't worth the effort it would take to whip him into shape.

Still, a tiny part of her couldn't help but worry. If nothing else, he _was_ a fellow pilot - Asuka needed him at his best if he was going to deploy alongside her.

 _Give them an inch now…_ Asuka growled at the memory, then shook her head. _Fucking Mari, always ruining my fun. Even when she's on the other side of the damn planet…_

"Misato." The NERV captain looked around at the flat, cold voice - a tone Asuka rarely used. "What's wrong with Shinji?"

Misato started like a child with her hand caught in a cookie jar. "Err… what makes you think that? Th- that there's something wrong with him, I mean?"

 _Weak, Misato. You're usually way better at deflecting questions._

"Because he's sulking. That spineless prick doesn't know how to face problems without shutting down." Asuka scooped up another mouthful of noodles, grimacing at the barely palatable texture. "Also, because you still won't tell me why he wasn't at the debriefing. So spill it."

"I…" Misato put down her third beer can of the evening. "You know I don't like to bring work home, Asuka…"

"Well, you had an opportunity to tell me _at_ work and you didn't take it. Also, Shinji seems to have brought it home for you." Asuka crossed her arms and fixed Misato with a glare. "Spill, _Captain."_

Misato groaned softly, her posture sagging; Asuka maintained her unamused look. She knew she was treading on thin ice, invoking rank outside of NERV, but taking risks had always been her favorite way of doing things.

"I had to chew him out pretty hard," Misato finally murmured, bringing her beer can back up to her lips. "He might have brought down the angel itself, but… I can't ignore direct defiance of orders."

Asuka raised her eyebrow. _Direct defiance of orders? I knew something had gone down, but…_

" _Scheisse,"_ Asuka said, though her tone was subdued. "Can't the jerk make up his mind? One minute he's a spineless conscript, the next he's going rogue in the middle of a fight? I can't figure him out, dammit!"

"He's already heard it from me, Asuka." Misato's voice was more fatigued than Asuka had ever heard. "Don't beat him up over this. He's… he's carrying enough pain already."

Asuka let out a derisive snort. _Pain? Yeah, right. The spoiled brat gets selected for the ultra-exclusive Eva program by his own father, and he has the gall to complain about it?_

Misato's expression hardened. "Asuka, you don't even know him."

"I don't need to! He's -"

" _You don't know him_." Misato's voice was like steel. "Piloting Eva is easy for you, Asuka. You love it. But _Shinji_ _is not you._ And he didn't _ask_ the Marduk Institute to single him out."

Asuka looked away, her expression darkening. "You're defending him pretty hard, for all you claimed you'd chewed him out," she muttered.

At that comment, the fire went out of Misato's eyes, and her posture sagged even lower.

"I am, aren't I?" She said, her voice low. "This… _fuck._ This is too hard. I shouldn't… who the do I even think I am, his _mom?"_

After a minute, Asuka shrugged slightly. "If how you used to treat me and Mari is any indication, you're kind of… maternal. In general, really."

"But I'm also his commanding officer!" Misato whined. "See the problem?"

"So send him to live with someone else." Asuka's tone wasn't exactly sympathetic. "Or on his own, even. Or just take him off the pilot roster - I don't think either of us want a weak link in the chain, hmm?"

Misato shot Asuka a sharp look. "I'll take him off the roster if _and only if_ he asks me to. I _can't_ voluntarily reduce our deployable Eva strength otherwise - you know that."

"Yeah." The pilot shoved her plate of food away. "Okay, why don't you stretch out the chain of command?"

Misato's brow furrowed. "Stretch out the… what do you mean?"

"Make me squad leader," Asuka said, straightening her back and trying her hardest to keep her voice even and professional. "That way, when he breaks ranks, it'll be _my_ job to chew him out."

"Squad leader? I don't know, Asuka -"

"Don't even _try_ to tell me I'm not the best pick for it." Asuka folded her arms. "The only person who's been piloting longer than I have is Mari, and I'm _still_ better than her in both sync score and the tactical sims. And do you _really_ think any other pilot would be willing to take the job outside the entry plug?"

"Well, I would be willing to bet Rei would," Misato murmured. "But she's about as far from a natural leader as they come."

"Exactly." Asuka snickered at the thought of Rei trying to be commanding. _We'd probably have to order her to give us orders. Madness._ "So, what do you say?"

"I say I'm not making a decision on it right now," Misato said blandly, popping the tab on another can of beer. "I like to leave my work in the geofront, just like you pilots leave it in the entry plug. I'll say this - you make a better case than I would have thought. So, I'll think about it."

"I… guess I'll take that," Asuka replied, standing up from the table. "I'm going to bed. You should check on Shinji before you head that way yourself."

 **X-X-X **

The adrenaline buzz wouldn't leave her system.

Although the double team of Shinji and Rei had cast a pall of ill humor over the rest of the day, Asuka found the nervous jitter was not as easily banished as the intoxicating pride of victory - and never was this more obvious than when she was in her futon and trying to sleep. Her hands wouldn't keep still, and she had a hard time forcing herself to breathe slowly.

 _Oh, fuck this._

Asuka rolled over and reached out, pulling her phone off its charger and unlocking it.

 **[Princess]:** _Hey, Four Eyes! You'll never guess what happened today!_

 **[Princess]:** _There was an angel attack! A real live angel - with four minions, too!_

A moment later, her phone beeped softly. Asuka brought it back up to her eyes - and furrowed her brow in confusion.

' _Invalid Recipient: Number Does Not Exist.'_

 _Was zur Hölle?_ Asuka's frown deepened. She tried re-sending the messages, hoping for a different response.

' _Invalid Recipient: Number Does Not - '_

" _Scheisse,"_ she hissed to herself. "Mari, what's going on…?"

She tried calling Mari's number, but even before she'd pressed the call button, she knew what the result would be.

" _We're sorry, but the number you have dialled is not in service. Please-"_

Asuka groaned and tossed the phone aside, slumping back with her arm over her eyes.

 _Well, this isn't fucking helping me calm down. In fact, it's got me more nervous than before._

Mari had burned a phone number once before in Asuka's memory, and to this day she didn't know the details of why. _And whatever she was doing at Bethany Base almost certainly involved an angel… I need to tell Misato about this._

Asuka sat up - and stopped.

The last time Mari had gotten rid of her phone, she'd said that she couldn't risk using a phone that might be bugged… by NERV.

 _And we work for NERV - we're arguably the most important personnel on staff. It was shady as hell back then, and it's still just as bad… but if she burned her phone for a similar reason, she won't want Misato to know. Misato might be a good person, but at the end of the day, she's NERV._

 _Okay, I'm NERV, too, but I'm not selling out my sister. No matter how annoying she can be._

Asuka lay back down, staring at the dark ceiling in frustration. She'd hoped to calm down by venting at Mari - and now she was only more tense.

Her eyes slid shut, and her breathing slowed. If she forced herself to relax, she could sleep. It had always worked for her before when training stresses mounted to the point of keeping her up.

 _Fire! Searing plasma wrapping around her hand and arm, burning through skin and muscle like so much tissue paper -_

" _Scheisse."_ Asuka's eyes snapped open, and she clutched reflexively at her forearm. There was no burn, no blood. Her arm was whole and healthy, despite the lingering insistence in her nerves that it was damaged.

 _It hurts. It fucking hurts and it's not even real…_

A preliminary test earlier that day had suggested that normal painkillers didn't work on feedback pain. If ones that did existed, they wouldn't be found in Misato's apartment.

Asuka picked up her phone, rapidly keying in the unlock code. _I've got to take my mind off this somehow, or I'll go insane._

Her contacts list was rather sparse, but not empty. Though some of the names would be asleep - it was probably near dawn in Germany - she'd expanded the list somewhat since her arrival in Japan.

 **[Asuka]:** _Hey. Are you awake?_

 **[Hikari]:** _Yeah, what's up?_

 **[Asuka]:** _Nothing too serious._

 **[Asuka]:** _Just… looking for someone to vent at, I guess._

 **X-X-X **

"Pilot Ikari's sync is down."

Misato looked over the myriad displays, scanning for a number that made sense. None of them did. The sync test overlook room was very clearly the domain of Ritsuko and Maya; more than a dozen computer displays lined the desks, each with a different set of data scrolling over it. There were only two chairs - one occupied by Maya, the other empty. Ritsuko herself was in her familiar perch, leaning over the back of Maya's chair.

"He was at forty-five percent at the peak of the battle with Shamshel. Now he's right back down to forty-one point zero - dipping as low as forty point six occasionally." Maya regarded the displays critically. "I wonder what could have caused it."

Ritsuko looked back over at Misato. The captain immediately tried to blank her expression, and probably would have succeeded under the scrutiny of anyone but Ritsuko Akagi.

"Looks like it could be subconscious thought noise…" Maya narrowed her eyes, absent-mindedly chewing the end of her pen. "Did anything happen to him recently? Something that might have caused emotional distress?"

Ritsuko's eyebrow twitched, almost imperceptibly. Misato quickly looked away, focusing on the modified entry plugs sitting in the coolant tank that served as sync test pool.

"Pilot Soryu's sync seems stable, perhaps a point one percent increase. Seventy-nine point nine… she's good, alright." Maya tapped the keyboard again. "Pilot Ayanami seems to have climbed a full point. Twenty-nine point zero percent, no variance, bringing her adjusted rate to about thirty-seven percent. I wonder why the sudden jump."

"Maya." The technician looked up at the sound of Ritsuko's voice. "The junctions in Tau block and Epsilon block have been generating signal noise. Could you go fault-check them? I want to make sure these readings are as clean as possible."

"Yes, Senpai!" Maya put on a determined look as she stood up, grabbing her laptop and speed-walking out of the observation deck.

As the door hissed shut behind Maya, Ritsuko pushed herself off the back of the chair and stood up.

"She has a crush on you the size of Ishtar," Misato said, her voice soft. "You know that, right?"

Ritsuko produced a cigarette. "I guess that makes two of you," she replied, a sardonic smile on her face. She lit the cigarette and took a deep drag, blowing out in Misato's direction. "Yeah, I know. She thinks she's a lot more subtle than she is."

"Oh, gross." Misato leaned back to avoid the cloud of smoke. "Does she know you're spoken for?"

"By _you?_ Don't think so." Ritsuko's voice dropped even further, hovering on the edge of a whisper. "I'm pretty sure she thinks I'm fucking Gendo, actually."

Misato grimaced. "I could have done without that mental image, thanks."

"Anyway, fun as this is," Ritsuko said, her voice returning to its normal volume. "What's up with Shinji? You clearly know something about it."

The captain looked away again.

"Or you could evade the question. That's fine too, I suppose."

Misato's right hand curled unconsciously into a fist, and she took a deep breath.

"I… may have had some strong words for him after yesterday."

"Ahh." The doctor took another drag on her cigarette. "And that's probably what has him bent out of shape?"

"It's the only thing I can think of that might qualify. He seemed pretty broken up. The kid's brave, but fragile as hell."

"Well, be careful with him."

Misato looked up sharply. "Why do you care?"

Ritsuko sighed. "Because the Commander may dismiss him if his sync falls too low." She shook her head. "That'll be devastating for him - and for you too, I expect, since you seem to have enough maternal instinct for the both of us. Being down a third of our force won't be good either."

Misato stiffened, narrowing her eyes at Ritsuko. "That's all?" She said coldly. "Not even a little bit of your surveillance side-job?"

Ritsuko's smile vanished, and her expression darkened. "You don't have to make me sound like Kaji," she replied quietly. "And you're lucky the bugs in here aren't going to be replaced until tomorrow."

"You wouldn't have talked about us out loud if they were active. Not even quietly."

" _Anyway_. The more truth you give me, the more lies I can feed Gendo. The best lies are the ones that are close to the truth, no?"

Misato looked away, frowning. "Yeah," she managed eventually. "But I don't like this, Rits."

"If it helps, I don't either." Ritsuko turned, looking back out over the test pool. "I wish I didn't have to stretch your trust."

Misato tapped her lips with her fingertip. "Hey, my house isn't bugged yet, right?"

"Not as far as I can tell," Ritsuko replied, turning back to face Misato again. "Although I can only scan section two's integrated computer systems. It's possible, if unlikely, that your house would be on a separate system."

"Is _your_ house on the main system?"

"So far, yes." Ritsuko ground the cigarette filter into her overflowing ashtray, extinguishing it.

"Then I doubt he'd make a special exception for mine. It'll be safe there." Misato folded her arms. "Come over to my place tonight. It'll look like a social call, and you'll be able to speak freely."

Ritsuko looked down. "I'm not afraid of getting caught, Misato. I'm afraid of what _they_ might do to you, if _you're_ caught. If you're a part of this…"

The audio feed from the plug monitors abruptly crackled. " _Hey! Are we done yet?"_

Ritsuko whirled, stepping up to the desk and pressing a button. "You are here for as long as I need you, _Pilot Soryu,"_ she answered. "Now kindly don't interrupt me again."

"I thought you were nearly done anyway." Misato raised an eyebrow.

"Yes, but they don't need to know that. Especially not Asuka."

"Senpai!" The door to the observation room slammed open, revealing the ramrod-straight figure of Maya. "You were right - the junctions are full of faulty connections. I recommend full inspection and maintenance on all the main link blocks. If those two were that bad, who knows what might be wrong with the others."

"Thank you, Maya." Ritsuko straightened, finally allowing her shoulders to relax. "We'll see if it can happen before the next sync test… worst case, we run a few more tests as is. The interference isn't impossible to work around."

"If I may, Senpai, the links from the simulation bodies and the Pribnow Box also run through those blocks." Maya's voice held a note of nervousness.

"True. Make a note of it… those links _need_ to work flawlessly before the next harmonics test." Ritsuko produced another cigarette.

From the back of the room, Misato watched the Section 3 women working for a moment. Then she sighed slightly and headed towards the door.

"Ritsuko?" She called, as the door opened. The doctor looked back over her shoulder. "You on for tonight?"

Ritsuko nodded, a small smile gracing her usually composed features. "I'll be there."

Maya blinked quizzically at her mentor, but Ritsuko didn't elaborate.

The young technician pressed the intercom button. "Alright, we've got everything we need. You can come on out now; test's over. Captain Katsuragi will pick you up."

" _About time!"_ The test plugs began sliding upwards, out of the pool and back up to the catwalk.

Ritsuko rubbed one of her eyes, a tired expression on her face. "Maya, can you compile the report? I'm afraid I have lab work I need to check on."

"Of course, Senpai! That's what an assistant is for, after all!"

 _Oh, Maya, how does someone as young and sweet as you end up working in this pit of vipers?_ Ritsuko sighed as she left the room, her fingers idly playing with the lighter in her lab coat pocket.

Her thoughts drifted to her destination - the branch of the Artificial Evolution Laboratory that stretched down into Terminal Dogma - and what awaited her there.

 _Of course, out of all the broken or bleeding or dead victims of Project Evangelion, Maya hardly has it worst…_

 **X-X-X **

"Your AT field is stronger than usual."

Rei simply stared at a fixed point on the opposite wall, unblinking. Ritsuko knew from experience that the teenager was listening, or at least _hearing,_ but she very rarely responded if not directly asked to. Ritsuko simply continued reading down the scanner feed on her computer screen.

Her AT field _was_ stronger. Its frequency had increased, and - while its overall flux density had only climbed a few percent - its usual unsteady flickering was visibly less pronounced. Ritsuko had never seen a _stable_ AT output from her.

"In fact, your fluctuations are spiking at 1.07 _Animara_ … that's higher than a human soul. I'm impressed, Rei." Ritsuko flicked the stub of her cigarette into one of the overflowing ashtrays on the desk. "I'm also a bit baffled by it. Your AT field hasn't shifted this substantially in over six years."

Rei blinked, for - as far as Ritsuko could tell - the first time since she'd entered the lab. "Perhaps you have discovered a medication regimen that compensates for my weak AT field," she droned.

Ritsuko winced, looking away quickly to hide the expression. _No, Rei, that's definitely not it. That would require medications that were actually intended to help you._

She looked back at her blue-haired patient. "Speaking of medications. Anything unusual? Tremors? Nausea? Fever?"

It was a small effort to keep her voice steady. Ritsuko had gained plenty of practice, going through this every month for just over a decade - she had become quite skilled at maintaining a cold, detached facade when dealing with atrocities.

 _But no amount of practice will get the bitter taste out of my mouth._

"I have begun suffering nausea and minor tremors in the late evenings." Rei didn't even look at her as she spoke.

"I see." _Sounds like it could opioid withdrawal… her body flushes those out so fast. Faster than the barbiturates, even._ "Your blood tests should be done by now, and I don't think there's any need to put you through a deep core scan right now. Please follow me."

Wordlessly, Rei stepped off the scanner pad and followed Ritsuko into the next room.

 _It must be nice to be Misato. Her job is simple, clear - she kills angels. She doesn't have to keep an angel alive, while constantly drip-feeding it poison and lying to it about what she's doing. She doesn't have to look at a human face while she does it._

This room contained a small table with a chair beside it. On the table were all the necessary components for drawing a blood sample; at the other end of the room, there was a desk with a high-tech chromatography machine on it.

Rei simply stood where she was left, just inside the door of the room. Ritsuko walked up to the machine's control computer and tapped a rapid sequence into its keyboard. A spreadsheet appeared on the screen.

Ritsuko made a small sound of disapproval.

 _The sufentanil levels have dropped. Of course. Every time I think I've found an opioid that will work long-term, her damned angel body starts flushing it out. I've already gone through most basic opioids, as well as all the fentanyls I dare touch…_ She risked a glance over at Rei, who was predictably staring at the wall. _At this point she's immune to half of anything I could give her. I haven't yet managed to wash out her immunity to basic morphine, but the psychoactivity profile clearly dictates that an opioid is necessary to the stability of both the inhibitors and the soul block._

 _Her body's also making slightly reduced use of the mineral supplement and LCL. And her AT field was stronger, too? Food for thought!_

Ritsuko produced a prescription pad from her lab coat pocket, grabbing a pen and scribbling hastily.

"How much of your medication do you currently have?"

"Seven days' worth," Rei replied quietly.

Ritsuko nodded to herself. _I can probably tide her over another month or so. I haven't tried meperidine yet._

"This next prescription will be for one month, not two." Ritsuko scribbled a final note. "As always, come to me if you experience any change."

Rei nodded, walking stiffly over to Ritsuko to retrieve the prescription slip. Once she had it in her hand, she turned and left the room without ceremony, and the doctor was left to stew in her thoughts.

 _The deed is done. Until next time, that is._ Ritsuko lit another cigarette, her gaze still fixed on the blood test readout. _Another cocktail of poison, mixed to order. Good god, Ritsuko, what have you become? You're a doctor! And you've let yourself be an accessory to the brutal mistreatment of a goddamn child!_

 _Not a child. An angel. An angel, and the key to all our fates._ Ritsuko glared at the suddenly offensive computer screen. _Surely some sacrifices must be made for this, yes? SEELE must be stopped, and the commander's plan to do so involves Rei. What is one life overlooked for the sake of three and a half billion, anyway?_

The cigarette met its end, stubbed out in one of the constantly overflowing ashtrays that were a feature of every space Ritsuko frequented regularly.

 _But the Commander's brutality is getting harder to stomach lately, isn't it?_ Ritsuko lit another cigarette, her expression still calm but for a tightness around her eyes. _It's hard to remember the greater good when I'm staring down those innocent red eyes. I'm cold, but not cold enough for this._

Tapping the ash from her cigarette, Ritsuko stood up and walked out of the room.

Her destination wasn't far; it was technically another part of the Artificial Evolution Laboratory, although both this room and the ones before were restricted. None but herself, Rei and Gendo were permitted in most areas of Terminal Dogma.

The door auto-opened as it detected the signal in her badge. The lights clicked on a heartbeat later.

The familiar monstrosity of the red-painted dummy plug sat in the center of the room. Not far from it, Ritsuko noticed a new addition to the room's decor: an upright cylinder, perhaps a meter in diameter and more than two meters tall. The center of it seemed to be some kind of translucent plexiglass, but both ends were capped by steel-cased machinery. If she listened very carefully, Ritsuko could pick up the faint hum of a circulation pump running.

A humorless smile pulled its way across half of her mouth, and she stepped up to the strange vessel. A few quick taps of the small control panel on the upper cap, and the translucent plexiglass suddenly became clear.

Within the tube, floating gently in LCL with her eyes closed, was a picture-perfect lookalike of Rei Ayanami.

"Lovely to meet you, my dear," Ritsuko murmured. She stepped slowly around the tank. "And what might your name be, hmm?"

There were uplink taps on the skin of the girl's back. One on each axillary nerve, one on the nape of her neck, two more on her lower spine and two on the back of her hips. The skin around them was raw, crimson.

 _Fresh incisions; the cuts are barely clotted. They got you nice and ready for my chamber of horrors, didn't they?_

On her back, between her shoulderblades, was a tattoo in dark red ink. Ritsuko was used to seeing a '03' in that exact position - this girl bore '09' instead.

"Well then, _Nine,"_ Ritsuko murmured, and took a drag on her current cigarette. "Looking forward to working with you…"

 **X-X-X**


	6. Whispers and Secrets

**X-X-X **

**CHAPTER 6**

 **X-X-X**

Asuka had never in her memory seen Misato begin an evening meal without beer, and it was a disconcerting sight to see it now.

"Let me guess: it was Misato's turn to cook."

Even stranger, however, was the presence of Ritsuko Akagi at the dinner table.

"What, you don't _like_ it?" Misato quipped.

"Misato, you are the least adept chef I have ever known. You could burn deionized water - in fact, you could render deionized water inedible without even _heating_ it."

"Well, next time I invite you over, I'll be sure it's Shinji's turn to cook," Misato said flatly.

"You say that like you expect me to believe you." Ritsuko arched an eyebrow. "It wouldn't surprise me to hear you intentionally baited me into eating your apocalyptic cuisine."

"You wound me." Misato pouted.

 _Is something going on between these two?_ Asuka wondered, as she choked down the barely edible microwave food. _They get weirdly… standoffish around each other. And sarcastic, especially off the clock._

"I would have thought eating my cooking would be the least you could do," Misato continued, "Given that you didn't even attend my housewarming party…"

"I forgot. Got caught up in work." Ritsuko's expression betrayed nothing.

"You _forget_ a lot of things, these days."

"Oh! That reminds me!" Ritsuko smacked her forehead with her open palm. "I forgot to give Rei her new NERV passcard - ugh, and I saw her earlier today, too."

One of Asuka's eyebrows twitched, and a silent count began in her head.

"One of the children could -"

"Three." Asuka folded her arms and fixed Misato with a glare. Misato frowned at the gesture.

"Three what?" Ritsuko ventured.

"I was counting seconds until Misato volunteered me or Shinji for lackey work," Asuka said sullenly. "I call _not_ it."

"Well, you heard her, Rits," Misato said brightly. ' _Rits'? Was zur hölle?_ "Shinji can take it to her after school tomorrow."

Ritsuko raised an eyebrow. "Really, Misato? You'd have me send a teenage boy to the apartment of a teenage girl? Where she lives _alone,_ no less?"

From across the table, Shinji began making choking noises. His face flushed as red as a beetroot.

 _What is this, 1955? Shinji doesn't have the backbone to try anything anyway…_

"Well, you heard her, Asuka." Misato looked back at the German pilot, a shit-eating grin on her face. "You're on deck!"

" _Gottverdammt,_ Misato!"

 **X-X-X**

An archaic flip-open cellphone rang, its generic ringtone shattering the silence.

"Hello." The one-word answer betrayed nothing; even on a burner phone, there was no such thing as too much caution.

" _Ryoji, this is Ikari."_ The spy instantly sat up a little straighter. " _This line has been secured. Are there any bugs on your end?"_

"This is a burner phone. And…" Kaji looked around the bare room, which contained nothing but two tiny cots to sleep on. "I'm not anywhere they'd have bugged. It should be safe."

" _I didn't expect to be able to reach you. I was about to write you off as dead."_ Gendo's voice was hard. " _Bethany Base no longer exists, officially or otherwise. What happened?"_

"You're lucky you called today. I'm going to ditch this phone later." Kaji pinched the bridge of his nose. "Long and short - Bethany Base is a smoking hole in the ground, the Fourth Angel is dead, Unit Five is barely functional and Mari's not much better off. I have reason to believe the containment breach wasn't an accident."

There was silence on the line for a moment. Then - " _The loss of the Fourth Angel is a blow. Project Elohim will have to be put on hold, until such a time as we can capture another dormant angel."_

"I recovered copies of a handful of things from their hard drives. I couldn't salvage all of it - there was just too much raw data to grab on the short notice I had - so I just took the communications archives and anything above classification level four. Anything groundbreaking should be in there."

" _Project Elohim data is of secondary relevance, given the circumstances, but Dr. Akagi will appreciate it nonetheless. It's more important that you got the Eva and her pilot out alive."_ Gendo seemed to consider something for a moment. " _If the containment breach was sabotage, that paints the disaster with Unit Six and the delays on Project S2 in a different light. I need my weapons where I can watch them if SEELE is trying to cripple me."_

"Got it." Kaji looked over at the room's other occupant. "We've jury rigged Baal with aquatic combat equipment. We're making our way there by sea, and with the stealth suite active, she… _should_ be impossible to track. But watch the sky for us, would you?"

" _Rest assured, NERV will be watching for unusual UN military action now. If you can get within our operations range, we can also launch our current units for an emergency assist."_

"Thanks." Kaji looked over the room again. "We need to get underway. I'll be out of touch until we hit Japan again, but Baal's radiocom will reach Mari."

" _I'd say godspeed, but the name of our enemies casts that phrase in a less than appropriate light."_ Gendo's voice didn't change, but Kaji was sure he was wearing the sly smirk that he was sometimes known for. " _Get them here, Ryoji."_

The line unceremoniously died. Kaji let out a huff that might almost have been a laugh, and regarded the phone for a minute - before snapping it in half and tossing the remains into the corner of the room.

"Mari."

The other cot's occupant didn't stir.

" _Mari."_ Kaji poked her ribs sharply with his finger, wincing at the slightly slimy texture of the neoprene. "We need to move, kid. You know the drill."

"Mmmnnnnn _fuck…"_ Mari groaned, opening her eyes. "Oh, _ow…_ remind me never to sleep in a plugsuit again…"

Kaji raised an eyebrow. "Or without showering the LCL off?"

Mari sniffed the air. "Oh, Jesus. Yeah, that too. Normally I even like the smell, but _fuck,_ not the day-old processed crap."

"I would have grabbed you clothes and soap, but I was too busy stealing secrets." Kaji grinned. "Think you can walk on your own now?"

The British pilot pushed herself up with one arm and swung her legs sideways to sit in the edge of the bed, a pained grunt escaping her. "I… think so? I'll be fucking limping, though."

"Limping is okay. If it keeps us ahead of SEELE assassins, I'll take limping." Kaji reached under his cot and picked up a waterproofed bag. "How about the arm?"

"Still dead." Mari's voice was clinical as she looked down at her limp left arm - which bore a circuit-like pattern of scorch marks on the plugsuit surface. "By far, that's the worst feedback shock injury I've ever sustained. Ghost pain usually lasts twelve to twenty-four hours, barring the flashbacks; this paralyzed limb is already over twenty and doesn't even have _feeling_ yet."

"And I can't imagine getting back into Baal while she's still damaged will help."

"I don't expect so, no." Mari stood up, swayed, them stepped towards the bathroom. "Worst case scenario, re-syncing may cause permanent nerve death in the affected area."

"And you're still willing to -?" Kaji shook his head. "We don't have time for you to shower, Mari."

"I'm not showering." The pilot pushed the door open and closed it behind her. A minute later, Kaji heard water running.

"What did I _just say,_ kid?" He yelled at the door.

Mari didn't respond immediately, but the water turned back off after a mere thirty seconds or so.

"I'm not showering." Mari opened the door somewhat awkwardly, trying to clutch a combat knife and the door handle at the same time. "I was just rinsing this shit off. I'm done."

She limped over the the bed and sat down, ignoring the water dripping from her plugsuit and forming a wet patch on the blankets - not that it would have mattered, as they were already stained with the translucent red goo of spoiled LCL. She leaned down stiffly to jam the knife back into its boot sheath.

Kaji frowned. "I don't think NERV will be pleased you wrecked a plugsuit like that."

Mari looked at her now bare left arm, the plugsuit sleeve hacked off at the shoulder to leave a ragged seam and a few bleeding scratches where her precision had been off. "I don't think I give a shit, and this plugsuit was already wrecked. The burned sections won't do more than generate link signal noise."

Kaji nodded, mollified. "Alright. Are you up to move Baal? It'll be quite a few hours before we even get near Japan -"

"Do I have a choice? Let's go."

 **X-X-X **

_The city's oddly beautiful after curfew. Nothing is lit but the tower beacons on the buildings that haven't been retracted, and silent but for the cicadas…_

The door to the balcony closed softly behind her, and Ritsuko felt a tiny, sharp twinge of tension shoot down her spine. She sucked harder on her cigarette, smoking it like she had a grudge against it.

"So. The kids are in bed." Misato's voice lacked any trace of emotion, so Ritsuko could tell she was tense. "Lay it on me, Doctor Akagi."

Ritsuko winced at the cold formality, but straightened her shoulders and turned away from the dark city to face her girlfriend.

"Where does NERV get its funding from, Misato?" She said, almost idly.

The captain's brow furrowed. "Primarily from the UN Instrumentality Committee," she said hesitantly. "As well as the Strategic Self Defense Force, the countries where we have established branches - China, Russia, Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, erm, India -"

"Yes, that's all true on the surface," Ritsuko said flatly. "It's a pretty airtight money laundering setup, all things considered. With alien monstrosities attacking earth and us offering the only viable defense, it's no surprise that no one would look closer than that."

Misato's eyes narrowed, and her expression became hard. "What are you getting at, Ritsuko?"

"NERV is actually funded by a shadowy cabal that call themselves SEELE… an illuminati of sorts. There are twelve of them, probably all men, though I've never seen their faces. They are all old, very rich and _very_ powerful… the Instrumentality Committee is actually five members of SEELE, and more than half the seats of the UN itself are in their pocket." Ritsuko took another drag on her cigarette. "They created Gehirn and NERV. To defeat the angels, yes - but only incidentally. The angels had to be defeated for their plan to work."

"They created -? Wait, Gehirn existed before the angels were a known threat. Before second impact." Misato cocked her head.

Ritsuko lowered her gaze. "SEELE knew about the angels before second impact… and in fact, they may have purposefully triggered it. I don't know." She shook her head. "The only details I get are what the Commander knows and sees fit to share with me, and all _he_ knows is what he can gather by deduction or espionage."

Misato ground her teeth. "They may have _purposefully triggered_ second impact? You'd better be dead serious about this, Ritsuko. You know what -"

"I'm serious. Very serious. God, I _wish_ I could joke about this." The doctor ground her cigarette out on the railing, her fingers shaking almost as much as her voice. "Just knowing the _name_ of SEELE is enough to get you shot with a silenced gun and dumped in an unmarked grave. And if you think I'm joking, I've _seen it happen._ There was this lab tech that asked me once, and the Commander overheard him -"

Ritsuko cut herself off, biting the inside of her cheek.

"… anyway, I know I've been all cloaks and daggers recently, but please trust me." Her voice was steady once more. "I won't lie. Not to you."

The other woman didn't respond immediately, and Ritsuko felt the nervousness coil uncomfortably around her stomach again. At last, however, the silence broke.

"I believe you… I think." Misato's tone was guarded. "There has to be more to this, though."

Ritsuko let out a huff that might have almost been a laugh. "Oh, there is. Even if I dared, I couldn't cover it all tonight." She dug her pack of cigarettes out of her pocket. "So much more… for instance, do you know why the Eva units can generate AT fields?"

"Because they're living beings, right? A lot of that's your field of expertise, not mine. Something about molecular biology?" One of Misato's eyebrows rose. "You're smoking more these days."

Ritsuko blinked. "I am, aren't I?" She let out the same weak laugh, and stuffed her cigarettes away without lighting a new one. "Sorry. I know it bothers you. I've been in a whole new world of stress, lately."

"Not my decision to make," Misato replied neutrally, folding her arms. "I can hardly judge you for doing what you feel you have to."

 _Oh, if you knew_ _half_ _of the things I do 'because I have to', you'd judge me harsher than any._ Ritsuko bit her tongue. _I don't think I can risk telling her anything about Rei… I can't trust her judgement; she's just too emotionally vulnerable when kids are involved._

"Anyway. Where were you going with the AT fields?"

Ritsuko looked back up. "The secret behind their AT fields is no artifice of bioengineering, nor arcana of technology." She bit her lower lip. "The Evangelions can create AT fields because they are grown from tissue samples of the angel Adam. And that's God's own truth. I took the samples for units Three and Four myself."

"But… the angel Adam was destroyed in second impact." Misato's voice faltered. "I was… I was _there,_ Ritsuko. It…"

"Nearly destroyed, but not completely." Ritsuko held a steely grip on her composure. "It was reduced to a tiny thing, like an egg or embryo of its former self. SEELE kept possession of it until recently. I believe Kaji has delivered it to our dear Commander's custody."

"Kaji…?"

Ritsuko had been listening for a tremor in Misato's voice. The moment she heard it, she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Misato's shaking shoulders.

"I'm sorry." _Really, that's all you can say to her? You really are as cold as they say you are…_ "We can stop, if you want. Like I said, there's more to cover than one night would give us time for anyway."

Misato didn't respond immediately. She wasn't quite crying, but she was clearly holding back tears. _She's been like that as long as I've known her. Never lets anyone see her cry, not even me._

"… what time is it?" The younger woman finally asked. Her voice was quiet, but calm once more.

Ritsuko peered over Misato's shoulder, looking at her watch. "A little before midnight," she replied softly.

"Late…" Misato sounded fatigued. "I don't know… I want to know these things. I hate being in the dark… but just what you've already told me seems like so much."

Ritsuko said nothing. _What could I say? The order she put her faith in has betrayed her, and if anything, I am one of the traitors._

"No more. Not tonight." Misato straightened her back and pulled away from the embrace. "I need… I need time to process this. Even if there's more. _Especially_ if there's more."

"That's understandable." A humorless smile crossed Ritsuko's features. "It wouldn't look good for us to both show up late to work at the same time, anyway."

"No, it wouldn't." Misato stepped closer again. "I'm not too worried about that happening, though. I've never seen you show up late. Ever. Do you sleep five hours a night or something?"

"Four, actually, but -"

"Shhh." Misato's lips were inches from Ritsuko's. "You've given me a lot to think about tonight. Now, how about you take my mind off it?"

 _What did I do to deserve this woman?_

 **X-X-X**

Asuka's eyes snapped open. Her room was dark and silent; with the 11pm curfew in effect and the main buildings retracted into the geofront, Tokyo-3 was utterly still in the late hours of the night.

 _Mama…_

She bit the tip of her tongue to dispel the dream, and angrily cast the blankets off her.

 _Between Shamshel and… Mama… fuck, feels like I wake up sweating more often than not these days._

Nightmares about her mother's psychosis and death had haunted her for years, but dreams where she relived her death battle with the angel's minions were a new world of terrors. Asuka stood up, her movements subdued from their usual fiery fervor by the weight hanging on her mind.

Her arm twitched, and she grimaced in anticipation. Anytime she woke from a nightmare - whether it was about the angel battle or not - the phantom pains would creep back to haunt her.

 _It's a nerve shock symptom. It isn't real. It isn't real…_

Repeating it to herself _almost_ helped.

Hissing in frustration, she strode out of her bedroom and headed for the bathroom. The sudden light stabbed her eyes, and she winced, glad for a distraction.

 _Fucking phantom pain… isn't it enough that we feel it in the entry plug? Why's it gotta linger?_

Asuka stared at herself in the mirror. Her own tired, adolescent face stared back.

 _Fourteen years old. Fifteen in only a few months._ She looked paler than usual, and there were bags under her eyes. _I thought nightmares were something only old soldiers with PTSD got…_

Asuka was loathe to admit weakness, but in the quiet stillness of the house she was forced to face facts: the fight with Shamshel's seraphs had shaken her. She'd _won,_ of course, but it was still jarring. Feedback pain in a simulation battle with controlled circumstances was one thing; feedback pain in a true life and death melee was another entirely.

She narrowed her eyes at her reflection, and squared her shoulders. She pulled her spine into a stiff at-attention stance.

 _I won before, and I will do so again. You only lose when you give up, and the Ace Pilot does_ _not_ _lose._

"… Soryu?"

Asuka whirled, realizing she had left the bathroom door ajar. There, framed by the darkness of the hallway, was Shinji.

"Oh. Hey, Third." She turned back to the mirror. "Something on your mind, or do you just need to piss?"

Shinji looked down. "Couldn't sleep."

Something clicked in Asuka's head. "Nightmares?" She said, her voice softer than before.

Shinji nodded dumbly. "You get them too?" He murmured, almost to himself. His hand clutched unconsciously at his abdomen. "I… I worried I was just the weak one."

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?" Asuka snapped back.

"I just - I mean - you're so much stronger than me," he stuttered. "You love piloting. You're like this unbreakable colossus compared to me."

"Well, of course I am!" Asuka stretched her best smirk across her face. "I'm the best there is!"

"Yeah." Shinji's quiet agreement gave Asuka pause, and her eyes widened. _Glad I'm facing the mirror._ "But if even the best hurts sometimes, that means that the pain doesn't make me worthless."

Asuka shifted, tilting her head to look at Shinji's reflection in the mirror. His hand was still resting on his abdomen.

 _Fuck, I wish I'd seen those recordings of his tangle with Shamshel before I dismissed him so easily yesterday. And that was the real angel, not a seraph. Those whips hurt bad enough through my skin and armor - he got stabbed in his fucking guts._

 _Scheisse, I'm amazed he's standing._

"… don't sell yourself short, Shinji. You've killed two angels," Asuka finally allowed. "Maybe you don't have my skill or finesse, but if you can manage not to freeze up when an alien's basically gutting you with an arc torch, you've got the steel to make something great of yourself."

"You…" Shinji blinked. "You really think so?"

"Hey, don't push your luck, Third. _Potential_ isn't a finished product, and unworked steel is no use to anyone." She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Don't think this means I'll accept slack effort from you."

Shinji's brow lowered, and he looked at the floor. "I guess you're right." He sighed slightly. "I… I'm going back to bed. School tomorrow and all."

"Yeah, you do that."

Asuka looked over her shoulder at his retreating form.

 _I guess I should go to bed too. If I do my LCL-breathing exercises, I might even be able to ignore the ghost pain long enough to sleep._

She flicked the bathroom light off and padded softly back towards her bedroom. About halfway there, she froze.

… _was that a fucking moan I just heard?_

It was so faint she thought she'd imagined it, but Asuka wasn't the kind of person to leave questions unanswered. Quiet as a mouse, she crept further down the hallway.

"… _need to be quiet, Rits. Do you want to wake the kids?"_

Asuka pressed her ear to Misato's door, and held her breath.

" _It'd be a lot easier to be quiet if you weren't… oh. Oh-h-"_

" _Shhh!"_

And then, the unmistakable sounds of _kissing._

Asuka recoiled, narrowly avoiding falling over in her retreat. She clamped a hand over her mouth.

 _Misato and Ritsuko?! Misato and Ritsuko are… kissing? Fucking?!_ Her mind was reeling. _Scheisse, I… I guess I knew that two girls was a thing that could happen, what with growing up around Mari, but… I sure as fuck didn't expect to find it this close to home!_

There were more muffled noises from the room, then a slightly louder moan. Asuka clamped her hands over her ears and stood up, tiptoeing as quickly as possible back towards her bedroom.

 _From how they behave at work, you'd never think they were more than moderately antagonistic friends. Certainly not… ugh, it feels weird to say it…_ _lovers._

She lay down as fast as possible, clamping the pillow over her head with her arms. Now that she knew what she was listening for, the faint noises were unmistakable - they were on the edge of hearing, but Asuka had never been able to switch off her carefully trained attentiveness.

Sleep was a long time coming.

 **X-X-X **

_All my classes today have had some empty seats. Some have had a lot of them. This school isn't as lively as a central urban school should be._

 _It's because of the angels, isn't it? No one wants to live in a war zone. NERV made Hakone into the fortress of Tokyo-3, but now that it's under siege, the city is slowly starting to die._

"Are you okay, Soryu?"

Asuka blinked. "Huh? Yeah! Why wouldn't I be?"

Hikari's expression was concerned. "You've, um. You've been kind of… not all there. For most of the day."

Asuka looked around the classroom, where students were slowly filtering out. "Oh… was that the last class?"

"See, this is what I mean," Hikari sighed. "Is something on your mind?"

"Just tired is all. Stayed up too late." _Yeah, because I was kept up by gottverdammt battle nightmares and my two immediate superiors fucking, but that's_ _technically_ _the truth._ "Oh… fuck, is Rei still here?"

"Ayanami?" Hikari looked around the classroom. "I don't think so. When she doesn't have cleaning duty, she's usually the first out the door."

" _Gottverdammt…_ I was supposed to give her a reissued NERV ID." Asuka dragged her hands down her face. "I don't suppose I could stuff it in her locker?"

"She doesn't have a locker."

Asuka blinked again. "Wait… really? How is that possible?"

"I don't know. She's the only student at the school without one." Hikari shrugged. "We have the empty locker space, but she always says she doesn't need one. I'm fairly sure she carries all her books from home."

"Oh for fuck's sake… I don't suppose I could just give it to y- oh wait, fuck no, I'm not handing NERV documents to civilians." Asuka sighed. "Well, I guess I didn't really have anything planned this afternoon." _Not that I'm exactly thrilled to spend it in The Wonder Girl's company, but it can't be too bad. It'll be an exchange between professionals, nothing more._

"I beg your pardon?"

"I'll just head out to her house and give it to her. Do you know where she lives?"

"Well, yes," Hikari replied, looking at her feet. _She really has that cute demure look down. Wait, cute? Was zur hölle, Asuka?_ "But I don't know if I should -"

"I'm a coworker and a NERV officer." Asuka rolled her eyes. "I think you're okay telling me."

"Well… if you're sure." Hikari produced a notepad and began slowly scratching her pen at it. "She lives kind of… out of the way, though."

"Oh? How far is it?"

 **X-X-X **

It took Asuka almost two hours to reach the address, and she rode the light rail for most of it. The journey took her way into the western outskirts of the city, out past the primary defensive perimeter. _No one_ lived out here - it was nothing but a few dying criminal gangs, homeless people, and disintegrating, abandoned buildings. The sounds of demolition works echoed through the district at all hours of the day.

 _I'm amazed there was even a rail stop this far out._ Asuka's face had been set in an angry expression for most of the trip. _Still had to walk nearly a fucking mile, of course. Which of these ruins am I even looking for?_

She finally stopped in front of what looked like the concrete skeleton of an apartment building.

 _Scheisse, wondergirl lives_ _here_ _? That's what being the commander's favorite does for you? I don't even want to know what he does to people he hates!_

Grumbling to herself, Asuka stepped up to the stairwell. _Good fucking thing she only lives on the fourth floor. If I had to climb all the way to the top I'd just fucking go home._

The building looked even worse from the inside, with grime and decaying litter lying everywhere. The refuse thinned out slightly as she climbed - apparently vagrants weren't inclined to climb more stairs than they had to - but the grime certainly didn't.

Then, _finally,_ she reached the door to apartment 402.

 _Well, what now, Asuka?_

She pressed the doorbell, and ground her teeth when the resounding silence declared that it didn't work.

Growling in frustration, she pounded her fist on the door. A few letters fell from the stack wedged in the mail slot as she did so.

There was no response from within, despite the loud knocking. Asuka gritted her teeth.

 _Well, one more fucking thing to try, then I'll leave this freak to her freakish ways._

Asuka grabbed the doorknob and twisted like she had a grudge against it. With a soft click and a considerably louder _crash,_ the door swung open.

 _Of course she doesn't lock it. Why would she lock it? That's something_ _normal_ _people would do,_ Asuka thought inanely. _Fuck, isn't she at all worried someone might break in? Probably not; you'd never guess anyone lived here by the look of the door…_

The floor of the entryway was rather dirty, and sported footprints that indicated Rei apparently ignored the Japanese custom of removing her shoes when she entered a house. _Well, if she doesn't need to, I don't either._ The rest of the apartment wasn't much cleaner; damp dust covered most of the floor, except for the paths Rei walked, where the dust was scuffed away with more footprints.

 _Where the fuck is she? Is she not home?_ Then the faint sound of running water hit Asuka's ears. _Shower, probably. Wow. She does human things and I'm genuinely surprised by it._ Then Asuka's eyes narrowed, and a wicked grin settled on her features. _Well now, this is an unusual opportunity to prank a fellow pilot…_

However, as she entered the bedroom, her malevolent intent faded away. _Scheisse. How the fuck could I actually make this any worse?_

The walls, floor and ceiling were bare, dirty concrete, and the walls weren't even smoothed - just raw construction slabs. The only light came from an algae-encrusted window and a single fluorescent light overhead. There were precisely two pieces of furniture - the bed, its sheets _stained with blood, what the_ _fuck_ _-_ and a dresser.

Seeing little else worth investigating, Asuka approached the dresser. A cursory investigation of the contents revealed only simple white underclothes and a few empty drawers.

The top of the dresser was a bit more interesting, however. There was a pair of cracked orange sunglasses - _can't imagine her ever wearing something like this, wonder why she has it?_ \- a sheet of paper that looked like medical instructions and an unnervingly large collection of pill bottles, a 1 liter beaker of water, and another bottle of LCL. Beside the bottle, there were two packs of syringes; one sealed, one open.

 _Was zur hölle are all these?_ Asuka eyed the pill bottles, then picked up the sheet of paper. _Fluoxetine, diazepam… Wondergirl's on antidepressants? Wait, clozapine… what's that? Where have I heard that before?_

Then her eyes widened. _Mama! They put mama on clozapine. It's an antipsychotic. But… fucking why?! I thought she was a weird antisocial freak, but it turns out she's just doped into oblivion! Gott im Himmel…_ She scanned further down the paper. _Ketamine… secobarbital… meperidine… 'nephilim syndrome supplement'? fuck, I don't even recognize half of these. How is she still breathing? I'm no pharmacologist, but I'm fairly sure that this many hard drugs at once should be more than enough to kill someone. Especially a little waif like the first._

Asuka put the paper down gently, her hands shaking. She drew a deep breath and, carefully, collected her composure. Her gaze flickered over the dresser, looking for something to distract her attention from the witches' brew of pills in the center.

 _These glasses… something's fucking familiar about them._

Frowning, she poked them. Not only was the orange glass cracked, the frame was also slightly bent?

 _The Commander!_ Asuka's eyes widened. Commander Ikari was almost exclusively seen in sunglasses, and - though she was hardly afforded many opportunities to look at him closely - he _did_ seem to have a penchant for orange lenses. _They're his. They have to be. Why does Wondergirl have a broken pair of his sunglasses?_

She picked them up, sliding the bent frames awkwardly onto her face. The glass wasn't cracked in a manner that suggested they'd been crushed, but Asuka couldn't think of why else the frame might be bent.

Then there was the sound of a door opening behind her, and Asuka realized - with a spike of panic - that the soft hiss of falling water had gone silent.

 **X-X-X **

_This body is 10.51 years old and its heart has beat 442,430,483 times_

 _This body is 10.51 years old and its heart has beat 442,430,484 times_

 _This body is 10.51 years old and its heart has beat 442,430,485 times_

Rei liked showering - and as one of few things in the entire world that could elicit the word 'like' from her, that was no small statement.

Water was something special to her. She enjoyed swimming, too, but access to a pool was harder to come by than a shower. It was all too easy for Rei to drift through life in a detached, mindless haze - barely more than a vessel for the vast and ancient presence that occupied her core in the place of a true soul - but the soft, omnipresent contact of the cascading water always seemed to bring her back to herself. It reminded her that she existed; that she was _real._

Intellectually, she knew this was not necessary. The Commander had no need of a tool with perceptions beyond its purpose.

 _No, that is an incomplete picture. The Commander has required me to pilot EVA, attend school, and maintain all appearances of being human. These functions are not directly part of my true purpose, but they aid in its pursuit. Hygiene is important to maintaining health and social standards._

Her apartment lacked any heating for the water. Rei barely felt the cold, the vanishingly faint chill bearing little more than academic interest to her.

 _It makes sense that I am required to pilot. Of the other three pilots that exist, one appears substandard and one is absent. I, and pilot Soryu, seem to be the only reliable pilots on the force._

She felt a spike of tension in the back of her mind as her thoughts drifted to the other pilot. The feeling seemed familiar, but she couldn't place it.

 _Pilot Soryu is everything I am not. She is loud, insubordinate, and reckless. She dominates the pilot corps by simply shouting over opposing voices._ Rei's eye twitched, and she noted the irregularity. _She walks fast and runs faster. She could be compared to a dancing flame, in that red plugsuit - and indeed, fire is an apt metaphor for her existence._

Rei retrieved a bottle of salve from the shelf beside her, squeezing it onto her fingers and applying it the the skin around the uplink tap on the base of her neck. That done, she moved on to the ones on her shoulders, then her lower spine.

 _She fights with passion, heedless of the destruction or risk of her own death. She is a unique soul in a unique body, fragile and irreplaceable, yet she strides into battle without fear. She does not ask for attention, she simply takes it - her presence invading the space around her until I can fixate on nothing else._ Rei closed the bottle and deposited it back on the shelf. _Yes… fire is a very apt metaphor. She shrouds herself in red. She is bright, animated, and unstable. She is dangerous. She is wild. She is painful to be near._

 _This body is 10.51 years old and its heart has beat 442,431,517 times -_

Quick as a snake, Rei's hand lashed out and struck the faucet handle. The shower stopped instantly.

 _Two heartbeats longer than my standard shower length. I allowed myself to become lost in thought._ Rei stepped out of the shower, heedless of the water dripping onto the bare concrete of the bathroom floor, and retrieved one of the two threadbare towels she owned. _This phenomenon bears further observation. I cannot allow myself to become defective._

She ran the towel down her body in a cursory effort to absorb the clinging water, then draped it across her shoulders without further ceremony; she would have preferred to let herself entirely air-dry, but she could not justify the extra time it would take before she could get dressed. She rubbed the other towel through her hair in a similarly careless manner.

Still lost in the tedium of her shower ritual, she slid the bathroom door open.

Immediately, she stopped and took a moment to reassess the situation.

 _The second child is in my apartment. This was not an expected development._

Asuka had turned to face her, and the blue eyes widened. Rei didn't question why - her attention was fixed on one thing alone.

 _She is wearing the Commander's glasses._

A feeling that she didn't understand seized her, and she dropped the towel, her wet hair forgotten. She took two sharp strides forward, snatching the glasses from Asuka's face.

Asuka recoiled from the sudden intrusion. Unfortunately, she was already backed up against the dresser, which caused her to rebound back towards Rei - who was drawing back with the glasses clutched triumphantly in her hands.

The collision sent them both tumbling to the floor with a _crash_ a short series of small clacking noises. Rei faintly registered several spikes of pain in her back.

 **X-X-X**

Asuka had expected a concrete floor to feel harder and smoother, and a collision with one to feel more painful. She hadn't expected it to be _yielding._

 _It's cool, but not as cold as concrete should be. And not as smooth as it looked. Almost… bony, but kind of soft in certain -_

Then Asuka's vision refocused, and her mind caught up with her perception.

She had avoided the concrete floor by landing flat on top of Rei, who was sprawled on her back beneath Asuka. She was suddenly _very_ uncomfortably aware of exactly how closely pressed against the other pilot she was, and how thin the cloth between them was.

"Will you get off?" The other pilot whispered, so quietly as to be inaudible from any distance greater than _lying right the fuck on top of her._ It didn't even sound like a request, just a dry question for clarity's sake.

 _Wait, she actually spoke? Wait,_ _that's_ _all she can say, when I'm practically molesting her?!_ Shock and irritation vied for control of Asuka's mind, until mortification beat them both. _Oh. I'm… oh, Gott im Himmel._

Rei was so bony as to feel almost emaciated, but Asuka's left hand _definitely_ wasn't feeling bone. In fact, it had landed on something soft and rounded.

 _Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck._ Asuka cringed, scrambling off Rei as fast as she could manage. "I - fuck - I didn't - you shouldn't have -" she shook her head, swallowing the rising storm of anxiety and reflexive anger, and closed her eyes. "… I'm sorry," she finally managed, her voice a touch sullen.

 _Added to the list of things I never wanted to find out: Rei's hair is, in fact, naturally blue. Somehow._

Rei didn't respond at all. She simply pushed herself to her feet and walked calmly over to the dresser, returning the glasses to their spot beside the pill bottles and retrieving a set of underclothes from the drawers.

It would occur to Asuka, later, that staring at someone as they were getting dressed after a shower was incredibly rude - but Rei seemed to have no objections to her presence or gaze. Indeed, the blue-haired girl seemed content to utterly ignore Asuka's existence, and Asuka was too dizzy from the hurricane of confusion to remember a sense of propriety. So she watched her.

She'd known Rei was a slight girl since the day she'd lifted her onto a medical gurney, and lying on top of her earlier had driven the point home - but it wasn't until she actually _looked_ at her that Asuka realized just what it had meant. Rei's hips and shoulders were actually wider than Asuka's, but she was so skinny that it barely showed; every rib and bone stood out under her skin with painful definition.

Worse still were the scars. Some of the ones on her arms and legs looked accidental, but the torso scars were all surgical - some recent and red, many more white and faded. Their sheer number was terrifying.

 _What… what happened to her? She's a wreck. Is this why she's on so many medications? Does she have some kind of chronic illness? That paper mentioned a 'nephilim syndrome…'_

Rei, still completely oblivious to Asuka's scrutiny, walked back to the bed and began pulling on her clothes. Asuka - now finally afforded a clear view of Rei's back - bit her tongue.

There was _metal_ grafted into the flesh of her back, and the skin around each graft was rough and scarred. They looked like small circular ports which suggested cables to plug into. Asuka could count seven in all: two on her shoulders, three running down her spine and two on her hips. The '03' tattooed in dark red ink between her shoulderblades only accentuated the macabre image.

" _Verdammt,_ First. What the hell happened to you?"

"Clarify," came the soft reply. Rei was already pulling on her skirt.

"Your - that - those _things_ on you back. _Was zur hölle?"_

"Part of a now obsolete entry plug design." Rei picked up the white collared shirt, pulling the sleeves over her arms. "It is necessary for me to synchronize with Asherah's prototype systems."

Asuka blinked. At no point had Rei broken her clinical tone, but it seemed almost out of character for her to use her Eva's callsign - names whimsically assigned to them from ancient pantheons of pagan gods - instead of simply saying _Unit Zero._

 _If they're part of the synchronization links, that means major nerve surgery. Scheisse, I've given my life to Evangelion, but I think even I might have hesitated at that. How does this quiet little twig of a girl pull off being so hardcore?_

"What about that tattoo?" Asuka made a vague gesture to Rei's now-clothed back, despite the fact that the other girl wasn't looking at her. "Didn't really think you were the type to get inked. Aren't you too young, anyway?"

Rei tied the bow around her neck, and Asuka's jaw dropped as she realized that what Rei had put on was in fact her school uniform. _In fact, I don't think I've ever seen her in anything but a school uniform or plugsuit -_

"I am not at liberty to divulge that information." Rei pulled on her socks and shoes with practiced ease, then slid two innocuous bracelets onto her wrist. "Goodbye, pilot Soryu."

Asuka stared in shock as Rei walked over to the door and left the apartment.

 _Did… did she just give me the 'it's classified' treatment?! Me, a fellow pilot?!_ She seethed, clenching her fists. _And over a fucking tattoo, no less!_

For a moment, Asuka entertained the idea of chasing the first child down and demanding an explanation. The moment passed with pride as the clear winner.

 _Fuck it, if she wants to walk off with a stranger in her apartment, that's her verdammt business._ Asuka shook her head. _Gottverdammt… why was I even here in the first place…?_

Asuka let out a loud groan as she remembered the NERV keycard tucked into her schoolbag.

 **X-X-X **

Much later, Rei would return to her apartment. Her ID card had been rejected by NERV's security system, and she had waited nearly an hour by the entrance. One or two other employees had come and gone in that time, but none had helped her.

 _I failed to meet with the Commander as I usually do. This may displease him._

Eventually, she had simply returned to her apartment. Inability to access NERV headquarters was a problem she was not used to, but there was no reason to disrupt her sleeping pattern for it, and not did she have any reason to believe the situation would not be rapidly rectified by Section Two.

When she got home, however, she was greeted with something she hadn't expected: an envelope lying on her pillow. It was entirely blank, without postage or address, save a message scrawled in faulty Kanji on the front of it.

 _Since I forgot to give it to you when I was here, here's your new NERV ID card. -Asuka_

Rei blinked, slowly, but the envelope stubbornly continued to exist.

"Oh," she said eventually, and the soft sound almost echoed in the barren room.

 **X-X-X**


	7. Aquatic Combat Equipment, part 1

**X-X-X**

 **CHAPTER 7**

 **X-X-X**

Deep beneath the waves of the Pacific Ocean, something stirred. An astral echo reached into the deeps and woke a sleeping beast.

A huge, dark shape - at first appearing to be just a massive underwater hill, until it shed eons' worth of mud - ruffled its fins and pushed off the abyssal plain, swimming up towards the light.

 **X-X-X **

"Well, well! _Someone_ is dressed up fancy." Asuka's tone was cutting. "Could it be that our valiant captain has a _date?"_

"No," Misato said shortly, walking with uncharacteristic haste to the bathroom. "It's business."

"Business with _Kaji,_ maybe?"

"No." The neutrality in the captain's tone left Asuka somewhat taken aback; normally Misato would get at least a _little_ irritated if Kaji was brought up. "Me and Dr. Akagi are going to the Old Tokyo dead zone to observe a weapons test."

 _Oh right, Dr. Akagi. Who is Misato's secret girlfriend… or at least fuckbuddy? Scheisse, if the former, no wonder she can stay composed at the mention of Kaji. Has everything I thought I knew been a lie?_

"I may be gone for up to three days." Misato put the last pins in her hair. "So don't wait up for me."

"A weapons test?" Asuka frowned, stepping up off the couch and looking down the hallway at the captain. "Are we getting new toys?"

Misato paused, and turned, fixing the pilot with a glare. "Asuka, I don't ever want to hear you calling military hardware ' _toys'_ again." She looked back at the mirror. "And no. The manufacturer is trying to produce something that can compete with Evangelion. I doubt this will be a productive trip."

Shinji finally spoke up. "Then… why are you going?"

"The pilots aren't the only NERV personnel that get ordered around, Shinji." Misato's demeanor was cold, in a way Asuka wasn't used to hearing outside of the Central Dogma ops floor. "The Commander wants us to observe the test, so observe we will. Goodbye."

"Hey, w-" Asuka began, but Misato strode past her and out the front door before she could even finish.

Shinji stared after her blankly, while Asuka wore a sour expression.

"Hmph," she grumbled. "Just leaving the two of us alone here? For as long as three days? Just when I thought she couldn't _get_ more irresponsible."

"Maturity… doesn't seem to be her strong point," Shinji murmured.

"You're telling me!" Asuka folded her arms. "She's just as bad as she was when she was my guardian back in Germany. In fact, worse, if -"

 _No, Asuka, that can't be right. Rei's living conditions can't be Misato's work. Misato struggles with being a competent guardian, but she'd have to be a heartless monster to stash a teenage girl in an abandoned concrete hovel like that!_

"If…?" Shinji raised an eyebrow.

"None of your _verdammt_ business," Asuka growled.

 _Misato would go ballistic over the notion that a pilot's being treated like that. So either she's under orders to keep quiet… or she doesn't know. If the latter, it might just be oversight - but Misato_ _is_ _ops director, so it's a_ _serious_ _oversight, and that still wouldn't answer why she was there in the first place. If the former, well, then this rabbit hole goes deeper than I thought._

"Umm… I'm going to go make lunch," Shinji finally said.

"Yeah, you do that," Asuka said dismissively. After a moment, she dug out her phone. Kaji's number was dead, just like Mari's, but she was pretty sure a simple email would get through to him eventually.

 _NEW MESSAGE to -Kaji-_

 _Heyyy~! Sorry to be all business, but I've got a favor I want to ask of you. You're the kind of guy who finds things out, right?_

 **X-X-X**

A _boom_ and a shudder jerked Kaji awake. He sat up immediately - and flailed briefly as the thick liquid around him threw off his balance.

"You just _had_ to wake up now," Mari murmured from the front of the entry plug. "Oh, there it goes. Sync rate dropping, dropping… holding… I guess sixty-four percent isn't _too_ bad. Try not to think to loudly, will you?"

"Sure." Kaji hated being sidelined, but he knew better than to argue. As a passenger in an Evangelion's entry plug, there was nothing he could do beyond sit quietly and keep out of the pilot's way.

"Wondering what's going on?" Mari smirked, and Kaji was once again reminded that this was very firmly her battleground and not his. "Well, so am I, really. I'll tell you when I actually know."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Kaji's eyes narrowed, and he stood up, leaning over the back of Mari's chair. He remembered why this was a futile exercise a moment too late.

Mari was focused attentively on empty LCL, her eyes flickering over displays that were invisible to anyone not synced with the Evangelion. Her body shifted subtly when she moved the massive creature, but there was no other visible indication that she was even piloting. Even the one usable hand that she kept on the control yoke was relaxed, barely holding the handle.

Kaji had to admit he was impressed - Mari herself had said it took a special kind of skill with the link circuit to keep one's human body entirely relaxed while moving the monster.

"Felt something funny to the port side in my longrange AT sense," Mari said cheerfully. "I'm keeping course away from it. The sense can pick up a ton of false positives at that distance - pretty much any aggregation of life can trigger it, particularly a large cluster of humans - but you never know. Could be an angel. Or, worse, another Evangelion."

Kaji stiffened. "Worse? What do you mean?"

"If SEELE thinks they can cut us down without Gendo pinning it on them, then they'll send Evas to kill us. And, believe it or not, a lone Evangelion is a deadlier force than a lone angel, going by what battle data exists so far." Mari's tone was a brittle kind of cheerful. "Baal is scrap metal and bones if she gets into an Eva fight in _this_ state. It's a sprint to Japan from here. I'm pushing her as fast as she goes; let's hope."

Kaji winced. "Is there anything -"

"Sit down and shut up, Kaji. I need to listen."

"Wha- listen? To what?"

"To the AT ambience. Now - sit down, and shut up!"

Reluctantly, Kaji did as he was told.

 **X-X-X **

The longboat cut a rapid wake through the frigid, scarlet water. Gendo pushed the rudder slightly, his eyes still fixed on the horizon.

"Are you going to tell me what you've got up your sleeve yet?" Fuyutsuki grumbled. "SEELE has been searching for the lance for over a decade now. What makes you think you can suddenly pinpoint it?"

"Not up my sleeve, Kozo. In my glove." Gendo's voice was as eerily calm as ever. "I can pinpoint it because I have the entity it exists for."

Fuyutsuki frowned, looking back at the Commander. "Adam?"

"Of course. The lifeseed knows its lance." Gendo smiled slightly. "I felt it respond to the presence of Shamshel, and after a few tests around the Evangelions, I can reasonably say that the embryo is extremely attuned to AT resonance. The lance is not _exactly_ the same, but the sensations Adam has produced over the course of the past two hours or so lead me to believe it is definitely capable of seeking out the soul breaker."

Fuyutsuki grimaced at the wording, looking away.

 _I can hardly blame him. The very existence of a weapon like the lance is horrifying to beings like us._ Gendo shifted the rudder again. _A spear that can pierce the border of the soul… effortlessly rending the inviolable Ænima Terminus. A terrifying weapon against the angels - and even_ _I_ _don't want to dwell on what it might do to a human._

"You brought Adam. You brought Adam _here."_ Fuyutsuki's tone was heavy with trepidation. "Here, where the world is thin and frayed enough, and things already leak through the cracks. Are you _insane,_ Ikari?"

"On the contrary, Kozo," Gendo replied, still smiling slightly. "I am simply willing to take a calculated risk. We _need_ the lance. Our scenario cannot play out without it."

"Of course." Fuyutsuki still didn't sound happy, but he let the matter drop, instead opting to look out over the expanse of red water and stained icebergs. "The scenario takes priority."

"Indeed it does."

 _I will risk anything for you, Yui._

 **X-X-X **

_Old Tokyo, now merely part of the Itto Sanken dead zone. One of many sunken cities, drowned by the hubris of man._ Ritsuko flicked her cigarette filter away, watching the thin trail of smoke arc out over the water and fall. It landed with a ripple, near a rusted structure girder that stuck out of the sea like a jagged spear - one of many such edifices that dotted the immense shallow bay beside the test range.

 _Reinforced concrete slabs, support beams, even leaning walls or half-collapsed structures._ She pulled out another cigarette. _Once these were buildings that touched the sky, making up the mightiest metropolis that mankind has ever built. Now they are no more than rock and ruins. The sea-washed bones of a dead human hive, slowly decaying under the inevitable march of time and tides._

"Uh, Rits? The test range is _that_ way. And the tour's almost over, anyway - wanna head back to the hotel room?"

 _Gods, I love her voice. If smiles made a sound, that's what they would sound like._ Ritsuko took a deep drag on her cigarette, and leaned heavily against the guardrail that separated her from a 20-foot drop into the lagoon of ruins. _Now or never, Ritsuko, and never isn't an option. Savor that voice. It might be the last time she ever sees fit to speak to you._

Ritsuko turned quickly, fixing Misato with a serious look. The captain flinched; in her tall heels, Ritsuko's eyes were a few inches higher than Misato's.

"I've sabotaged the test," Ritsuko said tonelessly, though it took all of her self-control not to blurt it out like a middle schooler.

Misato's eyes widened. "… what?" She asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

"I've sabotaged the Jet Alone test," Ritsuko repeated, a slight tremor entering her voice this time. She brought up her cigarette again, trying to keep her hands from shaking.

Misato blinked. Then she blinked again. " _Why?!"_ She managed, aghast. "The power plant in it is five times the size of an Evangelion reactor and half as stable - the thing's already a walking nuclear accident! Ritsuko, project E's results speak for themselves. There's no need to rig a _weapons test_ just to show off for the Commander!"

Ritsuko held up her hands. "I didn't _want_ to do it! He - the Commander ordered me." She looked away. "I did what I could. Units Zero and One are ready to launch to airlift on five minutes' notice if the test turns into a large-scale accident."

"Oh, don't give me the 'just following orders' line!" Misato clenched her fists. "What exactly _have_ you done? No, wait, don't tell me. Knowing how cold-blooded Gendo is, it has to involve at least the threat of a large-scale meltdown. This test range isn't far from a _major city,_ Ritsuko! How could you? _How could you?!"_

Ritsuko winced, then looked down, still unable to meet Misato's gaze. "I… wish I could answer that," she whispered.

"What happened to you, Ritsuko?" Misato's cold glare cut Ritsuko like a knife. "This - this isn't the woman I fell in love with. Screw _following orders,_ you had a _choice_. Why?"

"Because I'm in too deep," Ritsuko said, her voice still soft. "The moment I openly show disloyalty, I'm dead. And -"

"And that justifies killing _millions?"_

" _\- And,_ the Jet Alone reactor _won't_ melt down." Ritsuko sucked nervously on what was left of her cigarette. "At least… not if everything goes according to plan. I was as meticulous as I possibly could be. It should stay a scare, not a real accident."

Misato stepped back, her eyes still focused on Ritsuko. "We have to stop it," she said softly. "We… we have to stop the test. We can't put those people at risk like this - we've got to tell them!"

The captain took another step back, and Ritsuko desperately stepped forward, reaching out to her estranged lover. "Misato, no! You can't -"

"I can't _what,_ Dr. Akagi?!" Misato slapped Ritsuko's hand away, but it was the formal title that made Ritsuko wince. "I can't _do the right thing?"_

Ritsuko opened her mouth. Then she shut it again, the terror in her eyes dying away as a dark resignation surface. "Do what you have to do," she finally whispered. "I won't… I can't stop you."

Despite herself, however, Misato paused. "No," she muttered. "You're doing it again - this isn't _you,_ Ritsuko. What, are you suddenly _not_ afraid they'll kill you?"

Ritsuko let out a soft chuckle as she stubbed her cigarette out on the railing. "No, I just… I don't want to fight you anymore," she said. "And I _know_ they'll kill me, if the test is stopped. It would mean I betrayed Gendo, and by extension SEELE. What worries me is that I think they'll kill _you,_ too."

"They'll…" Misato hesitated, one hand moving to fidget nervously with her cross pendant. "They'd really do that? Kill both of us?"

"I'm more at risk; I'm in deeper than you are. But on the other hand - and god, I'm sorry for how cold this sounds - you're probably more replaceable."

Misato drew back as if she'd been slapped. "I'm _more replaceable?!"_

"No - I didn't mean -" Ritsuko pinched the bridge of her nose. "Misato, you're more important to me than anything. I meant to NERV."

The captain's eyes narrowed and she clenched her fists, but then she seemed to deflate. "Fuck. I… can't argue with that."

Ritsuko reached out, as hesitantly as if she were trying to pet a skittish kitten, and put her hand on Misato's cheek. "I've… I've covered every possible risk I could find," she said. "And like I said, Units Zero and One are ready and on standby. The pilots will be at NERV headquarters during the Jet Alone test - I scheduled their sync test at the same time. Even if it looks like my safeguard isn't going to work, they'll be able to handle the situation."

"Asherah and Ishtar?" Misato cocked an eyebrow, although she didn't pull away from Ritsuko's touch. "That leaves out our best pilot. Why?"

Ritsuko finally smiled, rolling her eyes slightly. "That loudmouthed brat would never let you hear the end of it if you deployed her for 'civilian duty,' and her unit is non-optimal in any case." She pulled her hand back, retrieving another cigarette. "I've been keeping running tabs on battle data. Unit Zero is exceptionally tough, and she regenerates damage quicker than the other two; Unit One is showing a clear edge in AT field strength. Unit Two wins out in the pure physical strength department, which is great against an angel, but it's just not as useful in the context of nuclear accident containment."

Misato looked away from Ritsuko, gazing down at the massive figure at the far end of the test range. Then she looked back, her eyes hard once more.

"I hope you're right, and this goes to plan," she said. "For your _own_ sake, as well as all the lives you'll have destroyed."

Ritsuko's smile remained in place, and she chuckled again - though it was a little more hollow than before. "I hope so too," she whispered. "God, I hope so too.

 **X-X-X**

 _This body is 10.52 years old and its heart has beat 442,851,917 times._

Sync tests were not easy for Rei, despite the blank passivity of her demeanor throughout the many she had attended over the course of her lives. Although her uplinks provided a hardware wiring into Unit 00's nervous system and _destrudo_ , it was not truly a complete connection to her soul, and the uplinks were insufficient without working in tandem with the LCL circuit; the fact that the test plugs were not physically within the Evangelions for the test tended to mar her scores. While the other pilots received and transmitted whole _animara_ signals through the link circuit alone, Rei essentially synced through two different interfaces - and the response disparity between the nerve-taps and the link circuit became more pronounced when stretched out through a couple hundred or thousand meters of fiber-optic cable.

 _29.9%, which means that when actually piloting it should be about 38%. My sync rate has improved slightly. The Commander will be pleased._

For a moment, she felt a flash of memory - of delivering cold-voiced status reports to the back of Gendo's head while he gave terse, cursory replies.

 _The Commander is… not one to waste words. He is pleased when I perform well; I know this, and he must know I know this, so why would he state the obvious?_

"Rei?" It was Maya's voice. "You just dropped by three percentage points. Is everything okay?"

Rei opened her eyes, although she did not look at the comm window on her display. "No problems, Lieutenant," she murmured.

 _Introspection is not my purpose. I must focus on synchronizing._

She pulled her attention back to the distant light of Unit 00's core, and the distorted image of her own face that lay within. Her sync rate ticked back up, topping out at a flat 30.0%.

" _Hey, try to keep up, First!"_ Her comm crackled. " _I won't be putting up with weak links on my team!"_

Rei's gaze slid slowly over to the comm window, where Asuka's face hovered. The other pilot couldn't see her - as per the Commander's orders, she kept her outgoing comm on sound only - but Asuka didn't seem fazed; the German pilot was staring straight ahead as if she were looking at the view of at battle rather than the end of the test plug.

Rei's eyelid twitched ever so slightly. It would have been an almost imperceptible movement, even to someone who knew her, and yet there it was.

 _I must rectify these defects. Being near another pilot should not make me faulty._

Asuka had, for whatever reason, not closed her comm channel. Rei reached out in her mind to close it from her end - then stopped.

There was something about the second child's visage that gave her pause. The orange LCL muted the blue of her eyes to a dark grey, and her hair - floating around her head in the thick liquid like a halo - was accentuated to a brilliant red, as if she was wreathed in the light of a lithium flare.

 _A halo of fire. Like a seraphim of myth: a burning one._

She was a perfect mirror of Rei herself, right down to the hard expression where Rei knew her own displayed only neutral apathy.

 _What is it about her?_ Had Rei been the type of person to express herself, she would have furrowed her brow. _She is everything I am not, and everything I should hate. I should avoid her - indeed, I have made no move towards her, and yet she has approached me herself. I cannot bring myself to actively drive her away._

 _The Commander would disapprove of my interest, and order me to cease association with her if he knew about it._ _Why, then, have I not reported this deviation to him?_

Rei found she had no answers for herself. Every instinct drilled into her mind over her fourteen years of existence told her that the Second Child's willful disregard of authority, her self-righteous fury, her passion, her confidence, her _individuality_ were all traits that Rei herself should abhor. And yet time and time again her thoughts drifted back to the German girl.

 _If you ignore a fire, it may grow. And a fire that grows too large will consume everything it touches._

Rei's eyes narrowed imperceptibly, and she drove the errant thoughts from her mind with an ironclad discipline.

 _This body is 10.52 years old and its heart has beat 442,852,006 times._

Her eyes flickered back to the comm screen for a fraction of a second - then snapped back to looking straight ahead. Rei focused her thoughts into the plug systems, and comm line beeped as it closed out.

 _This body is 10.52 years old and its heart has beat 442,852,006 times._

Abruptly, the plug speakers beeped again. This time the screen - a data readout, rather than a comm window - appeared in the dead center of Rei's telepathic HUD.

 _Sync test status: hour 2 of 3_

 _First Child: 30.0% +/- 0.1%, adj. approx. 38%_

 _Second Child: 80.1% +/- 0.2%_

 _Third Child: 47.6% +/- 0.8%_

A second later, Asuka's comm line opened yet again. " _Oh yeah! Still the best there is, motherfuckers!"_ She crowed. " _Eighty percent broken - suck it, Four Eyes!"_

" _Well done, Asuka,"_ Maya said - in a considerably calmer tone. " _That's a new personal record - and probably a new record, flat. I don't have Pilot Illustrious' scores on hand to check, though."_

This time, Rei couldn't make herself look away from the frenzied grin on Asuka's face.

 _Would the Commander commend me in such a manner if my scores were that high?_

" _You don't have to check! I know Mari's scores. She's been hovering at an average of seventy-eight point nine. She's never spiked higher than seventy-nine point five."_ Asuka sounded almost drunk on pride. " _She'll be so mad that I broke eighty percent before she did! I guess all her talk about the wisdom of age doesn't translate into the practical after all!"_

Rei's eye twitched again.

 _This body is 10.52 years old and its heart has beat 442,852,006 times._

 _This body is 10.52 years old and its heart has beat 442,852,007 times._

 _This body is 10.52 years old and its heart has beat 442,852,008 times…_

 **X-X-X**

 _Scheisse, is three hours really necessary?_ Asuka gritted her teeth, fighting to keep herself focused on the connection to Unit 02 despite the mounting boredom. _I haven't managed to pull another percentage point out of my ass - it's a fucking stretch to sync any deeper than I'm already at. I don't think any human is designed to synchronize this closely with these hellenic titans._

 _Come on, Asuka. Test's almost over. Let's try one more push._ She closed her eyes.

Her mind stretched out into the link, reaching into the huge _other thing_ that lurked there. Intellectually, she knew it was just the feel of the nervous system and cybernetics that moved the Evangelion - but when she was literally mind-jacked into it, Asuka had difficulty thinking of the presence as anything other than the beast's soul.

 _Evangelions aren't anywhere near as scary from the inside. Moloch is fiery, but she's never felt unsafe to me. She's warm and strong, like a roaring hearth fire, or the embrace of a mother's arms…_

Asuka flinched, and felt her sync drop slightly in response. _Mama… this is the last place she was before the madness took her._

 _Are you proud of me, Mama?_

Her brow furrowed as she concentrated, trying to call to mind memories of her mother that weren't painful. It wasn't easy; despite her prodigious intellect, even Asuka didn't have well formed memories of her very early childhood.

There were a few fleeting impressions, though - a flash of blonde hair, a laugh, a smile. She tried to assemble them into a coherent picture, visualizing a proud Kyoko Soryu sitting in Moloch's entry plug.

 _Asuka?_

The pilot started, although she didn't open her eyes. "Did… did you just say something, Maya?"

"… _no?"_ Maya sounded confused. " _You jumped to eighty-one for a minute there, though."_

Asuka shifted uncomfortably, then concentrated again.

 _Stupid, stupid. Thinking of Mama. I don't need a mother,_ Asuka thought angrily. _She might have loved me once, but then she replaced me with a fucking doll._ _I don't need a gottverdammt hug, and I don't need anyone to tell me they're gottverdammt proud of me._

She clenched her hands around the control yokes, forcing the thoughts from her mind.

 _Asuka!_

Her eyes snapped open.

Two images assaulted her senses at once - the view of the end of the entry plug, and the view of a cage wall and umbilical bridge in front of her.

 _Asuka!_

A spike of pain lanced through Asuka's head, and she cried out, clutching at her temples. One set of hands moved freely - the other pulled in vain against creaking hyperdiamond clamps.

She felt the vague impression of an alarm sounding, and -

The next thing she knew, the comm was crackling, and Maya's worried voice echoed in her test plug. " _\- you hear me? Asuka!"_

"I - ugh," the German girl began, shaking her head. "Yeah, I can hear you. What the fuck happened?"

" _Unclear. Moloch somehow got switched on to full power a minute ago. Your… let's see."_ There was a brief burst of typing sounds. " _Your sync spiked over ninety percent and your harmonic readings… well… all I can say for sure is they went kind of crazy. Then, as far as I can tell, you blacked out for about fifteen seconds."_

Asuka let her head fall back against the seat. "Great. Any idea what went wrong?"

" _Nothing conclusive yet. I'd guess the activation was a random power fault in the umbilical cable - Evas can be finicky about their power supply."_ There was another flurry of keystrokes. " _As for the weird harmonics and blackout… hard to say. I'll have to show the results to Dr. Akagi before I'll know anything. I'd hazard a guess that it was due to being synced during the activation sequence, which isn't normally supposed to happen."_

Asuka brought her hands up, rubbing her face slowly. " _Scheisse._ Good to know…" she shook her head, realizing that the link to Moloch was gone. "Can I get out now? I don't think I can muster sync again… not for a little bit, at least."

" _The test's over in seven minutes anyway. I'll call it early."_ Asuka's entry plug jolted, and began to shift slowly upwards to the pool dock. " _Well done, pilots."_

 **X-X-X **

" _Gottverdammt!_ Fucking LCL." Asuka threaded her fingers through the tangled knot in her damp hair, trying to tease it out. "Should have washed it out better…"

She looked back at the other two pilots, who were trailing behind her. Shinji was spacing out with his SDAT headphones in, though he paled and pulled one of them out the moment she looked at him, apparently assuming he was the target of her wrath. Rei was, as always, walking with methodical strides and a blank expression.

"Hmph." She looked away, increasing her pace. "Of course, neither of those _dummkopfs_ even have enough hair to understand," she muttered to herself.

Unfortunately, her other companion was more attentive than Shinji.

"If you cut your hair shorter, pilot Soryu, it will not become tangled after exposure to LCL."

Asuka stopped short, whirling to face the other pilot. "Care to repeat that, _dolly?"_

"If you cut your hair shorter, pilot Soryu, it will not become tangled after exposure to LCL." Every inflection was identical, to the point where Asuka actually wondered briefly if Rei had a tape recorder hidden on her person. "And I am not a doll."

Asuka's eyes narrowed, and she stepped forward - bringing her close enough to lean forward and loom over the small Japanese girl. "Wow, look who finally decided to grow a spine! I'd say I was proud of you, if you weren't mocking me!"

"Uh. I don't think she was trying to mock you, Soryu -"

"Shut up, Shinji. And I told you to call me Asuka." The taller pilot didn't break her staring contest with the other girl.

True to form, Rei simply stared right back, her head inclined upwards to meet Asuka's eyes. This time, Asuka didn't let the neutrality faze her. _There's a person in there, I fucking know that. You've just gotta prod her a little to show it._

After a moment she blinked, in her weirdly slow and exaggerated way. "Pilot Ikari is correct, pilot Soryu. It…" she paused, and her head tilted slightly to the side.

 _Woah, is she actually… struggling? With something like_ _this_ _? Those micro-expressions mean everything with her._

"It was not my intention to slight any aspect of your person," Rei finally concluded. "It was a statement of factual advice."

 _And now she's apologizing. Woah. Next I'll see pigs flying._ Asuka straightened. "Well -"

She never got to finish whatever cutting remark she had prepared - she was interrupted by the hallway lights dimming from white to yellow. _Yellow alert._

" _Evangelion pilots to the Central Dogma briefing room. Repeat: Evangelion pilots to the Central Dogma briefing room."_

There was no angel alarm, but Asuka didn't let that stop her. She immediately ducked around Rei and began sprinting back to the Central Dogma complex.

As she rounded the corner, a flash of blue just behind her caught her eye.

 _Is she really only a half step back?! Fuck, for a tiny freakin' doll, she sure can move!_

Predictably, Shinji was the straggler of the pack; he lacked the machine-like focus or leg length of the other pilots. Despite this, they made impressive time back to Central Dogma.

Lt. Makoto Hyuga was waiting for them in the briefing room. "Ah, you're here. This isn't an angel attack, but it _is_ a crisis - there's an uncontrolled nuclear hazard at the Old Tokyo ruins. Captain Katsuragi is on site, and has ordered Evangelion backup. I need two pilots ready to deploy by airlift ASAP. Volunteers?"

"Eww, you called us back here for _public service_ work?" Asuka wrinkled her nose. "I call not it!"

A faint smile tugged the corner of Hyuga's mouth. "The captain anticipated something along those lines. Ikari, Ayanami, will you take this mission?"

"Yes," Rei replied immediately. _Of course she did, she probably gets off on being a good little dolly._ Shinji hesitated, but nodded.

"Alright. Suit up and get on the express shuttle car to the airfield; I'll meet you there."

Shinji and Rei double-timed it out of the briefing room, and Hyuga followed. Asuka abruptly found herself on her own.

 _Well… scheisse. I don't exactly have anything going on now, do I?_ She slowly padded out of the room, then stopped in the corridor - looking first down the long and convoluted route that would take her to one of the exit elevators, then the other way, which would lead her into the heart of B wing and Central Dogma. _I could go home, but there's nothing to do there. Hikari will be studying - she's never available to hang out with less than a day's notice. And despite being the most popular girl in the school, I wouldn't want to give any of the other idiots the time of day._

 _Guess I could go to the ops room. If nothing else, I could get a look at all those fancy control panels that the bunnies get to play with._

She turned right, towards Central Dogma, and started walking.

 _Mein Gott, this place is big… it's ten times the size of the NERV-G facility._ She passed numerous doors marked with no more than bland and uninformative room numbers. There were even two elevators she wasn't familiar with, opposite the entrance to the ops room.

Upon second inspection, one was familiar: it was marked _Level Zero - Express Elevator._ She'd taken that particular elevator back up from the cages with Misato and Ritsuko when Sachiel had attacked; it also connected to the pilots' locker rooms.

The other one had two labels on its panel: _Artificial Evolution Laboratory sub-level,_ and _LCL Production Plant._ It was also guarded by a keycard scanner that was embedded in a single-piece titanium shell rather than the usual plastic casing.

 _Somehow, I don't think my keycard is going to get me into that one._ Asuka frowned. _Artificial evolution… sounds shady. I'll have to see what I can find out about that later._

She turned back towards the ops room, opening the door quietly.

She'd expected at least some kind of activity - a tapping of keys, yelled reports, something to indicate that they were coordinating a deployment. But the ops room was nearly silent. A relaxed-looking Lt. Aoba had his feet up on his desk and was reading a _Rolling Stone_ magazine; Maya was focused on her laptop instead of her station computer, apparently reading through lines of computer code.

"Hey, what's going on?" Asuka said aloud. "Aren't there pilots on deployment?"

Aoba didn't even look up. "Yeah, but that's not our problem. It's a small op." He turned the page. "Cap'n's on site already, and Makoto will be more than enough backup when he gets there."

"So, what? You just slack all day?" Asuka frowned.

"Pretty much. Not a lot to do here when we aren't under fire, 'cept a bit of system maintenance here and there, and you pilots' training exercises." Aoba finally looked over at her. "Maya here is the only workaholic, 'cause Section Three is friggin' always busy. But me and Makoto usually like to take it easy in between the life-or-death-battle protracted shifts."

 _That… kinda makes sense, I guess._ Asuka deflated slightly. _Me and Mari and Shinji tend not to worry too much about NERV when we're not on deployment, too. No comment regarding Rei, of course._

"I guess that's fair," she said, somewhat grudgingly. "Mind if I look around the ops room?"

Aoba just shrugged. Maya stopped reading and arched an eyebrow, then turned to Asuka. "Don't poke anything that looks active, or touch the Commander's red phone," she said. "Other than that, go ahead."

 _Cautioning me like a fucking child, huh?_ Asuka bit back a sarcastic response. _She's a superior officer, and she's being more lenient than many would be. Play nice, Asuka._

The ops room was eerily vast and silent without the support staff or the hectic noise of battle. The Commander's throne, as it was often referred to, was vacant; the ops floor was empty but for the two idle lieutenants and the softly humming MAGI cores.

The big screen showed a composite scan of an area with a huge radius - roughly a third of Japan in all, and a fair portion of sea. It was made up of hundreds of antennas and three geosynchronous satellite feeds, constantly sweeping the area for any sign of a blue AT field.

There was a soft beep from Aoba's console, and he briefly tilted his head to look around the magazine. "Looks like the sortie will land in about five minutes," he said.

"Jealous that Makoto's seeing more action than you?" Maya remained focused on her computer, but a faint smile twitched at the corner of her mouth.

"Nah, not really. I'm perfectly okay with staying far away from malfunctioning robot-borne nuclear reactors."

"Really?" Maya grinned outright, and arched her eyebrow in a sly expression. "And yet you work for NERV, in close proximity to Evangelions."

"Okay, first of all, they aren't robots. Second of all, the Eva hearts have never once malfunctioned since their final tests and installation." Aoba actually looked up from his magazine. "Dr. Soryu came up with a damn near flawless design. That ugly fuck that Misato's grappling down in old Tokyo can't compare."

Asuka looked up sharply at the mention of her own last name. _Dr. Soryu? Mama designed the Evangelion reactors?_ She blinked. _I thought she was just one of the biotech specialists that designed the DNA and nerve implants… I never knew she was a nuclear engineer too._

She sat down in Lt. Hyuga's chair, looking over his workstation. Its main screen was showing a similar scanner feed to the big screen, but with quite a few more control options.

 _Oh hey, cool. I wonder just how far out the search radius is?_

"The Evangelions have landed," Aoba said. Though he was hardly electrified, he did pull his feet off the desk and close his music magazine, looking at his screen. "I guess watching this should kill a few minutes."

 _Speak for yourself, I'm not going to dignify her… I mean them by pretending it's a legitimate deployment._ Asuka looked back at the screen in front of her. _First things first, let's see how far out into the Pacific we can scan._

Fortunately, it seemed that Hyuga's monitor was independent of the big screen - Asuka vaguely recalled that it was the auxiliary crew that organized those feeds, and presumably the central scan was just its idle pattern.

She pressed a button on the observation controls, moving them as far eastwards as she could. _Woah, NERV has scanning gear set up all the way out on Hawaii? That's pretty impressive._ She began slowly dialling it back across the Pacific, and the observation automatically switched to satellite feed as she moved away from the island.

A few more remote islands also had small antenna installations, but most of the feed was satellite vie

w of open ocean. She was somewhere past the halfway point back to Japan when the workstation suddenly emitted a shrill beeping sound.

Asuka recoiled at the noise, almost falling over as she stepped back. " _Scheisse! Was zur hölle?_ I didn't mess with anything -"

"Goddamn right you didn't," Aoba said, already standing and striding over to Hyuga's workstation. "The scanners don't need your fiddling to know their job. That's the signal for a blue pattern!"

 **X-X-X**


	8. Aquatic Combat Equipment, part 2

**X-X-X**

 _ **CHAPTER 8**_

 **X-X-X**

"Red Alert, Code Blue! I repeat: Red Alert, Code Blue!"

Maya let go of the base intercom button, running her hands through her hair nervously. She slammed her laptop shut and pushed it to the side of her desk. "Okay… at least the auxiliary staff will be here in a few minutes," she managed.

"Fuck, what do we do?" Aoba's eyes darted around the room. "The Commander and the Captain are both away, and we're down an ops Lieutenant. We're in no shape to hold off an angel!"

"Well, what do you normally do?" Asuka frowned. "You could start by bringing up a visual. It'd be nice to know what I'm up against."

Aoba gave he a funny look. "You mean what _we're_ up against?"

" _No._ You don't get to fucking say that," she growled back. "Not until you've been in an active entry plug."

"Visual confirmed. Bringing it up on the big screen." Maya's was the only voice in the room that maintained professionalism. "Object is definitely an angel, and appears aquatic. No other telemetry yet; we don't have sub-sea sensors that far out."

A capture from a spy satellite appeared in the center of the massive screen. It showed a hideous leviathan cresting out of the ocean waves, leaping what had to be close to a hundred meters into the air. Its proportions defied comparison to any normal fish - it seemed to be all fin and mouth and tail, like some kind of demented manta ray.

Asuka eyed the coordinates on the capture, mentally contrasting them with Japan. "It's far out from us," she said, half to herself. "Why's it showing itself above the water now…?"

Her eyes narrowed, and she slid the tips of her canine teeth over each other. She wasn't interested in revisiting the dental problems her younger self had endured due to a stress reflex of grinding her teeth, but the less severe mimic of the movement still helped her focus.

The auxiliary staff were mostly seated by now, the lower level workstations filled and active. Asuka stepped up to the parapet-like guard wall on the upper ops floor and leaned over.

"Hey! Give me a zoomed out shot from that position, will you?"

Maya raised an eyebrow. "Don't me and Aoba outrank you, _Warrant Officer?"_

Asuka met her eyes, her expression stony. "Are you saying you _want_ sole command of this operation, _First Lieutenant?"_

Maya opened her mouth. Then she closed it, and looked away. "Let the mission log show that Warrant Officer Soryu is commanding this operation," she murmured. "Be it on your own head, Asuka."

"I know how command works, Lieutenant _._ I'm not a _child."_ Asuka looked up at the big screen, now showing a much larger satellite's-eye-view. The angel had submerged again, but the titanic splash it had left was still visible as a small white spot on the waves; the creature was nearly the size of an aircraft carrier.

Not far west - maybe a few kilometers, no more than two dozen - a substantially smaller dot left a respectable wake on the ocean surface.

"What's that? Lock onto it and zoom in!" Asuka bit her lip. "Aoba, Maya, get Moloch ready for launch with aquatic combat gear ASAP."

"Yes, sir," Maya said without a trace of sarcasm in her tone. "I'm going to have them attach signal boosters to her radiocom suite too, so you'll be able to fully access ops data from the entry plug."

The spy satellite recalibrated and took its photo, this time focused on the anomaly not far from the angel. When the picture finally resolved, Asuka almost recoiled in shock.

"That's… that's Baal _._ _Was zur Hölle_ is… is _Mari_ doing out there?! I thought she was assigned to guard duty in the Arctic!" Asuka bit her thumbnail nervously. "Hail her! Try any radiocom frequency."

"Yes, sir!" The radio operator turned back to her workstation and began typing with breakneck speed.

"Maya, what's my status?"

"Moloch will be ready to launch in approximately two hundred seconds, if the aquatic combat gear gets attached without a hitch." She tapped out another sequence on her computer. "Ops data is already forwarding to your entry plug. I'd advise getting down there and settling in for launch about now."

"I don't - !" Asuka cut herself off, forcibly biting back the angry words she'd been preparing to snap. _Focus, Asuka, focus. She gives advice to Misato too, and even if she is slighting you, being petty never made anyone a better commander; don't screw up your moment in the sun._

"Noted," she said instead. "On my way."

She turned and strode towards the exit, heading for the express elevator down.

 **X-X-X**

" _Drop is in two minutes. Prepare to go to output level two, but don't engage AT fields unless absolutely necessary - we have no idea how long it will take to disable the target."_

"Yes," Rei replied.

" _Got it, Captain."_

Rei regarded the open comm channel, which displayed Shinji's face. He looked nervous, but determined.

 _The second child thinks the third has the makings of a soldier. I have not yet seen reason to disagree._ With the flick of a thought, Rei ran a systems diagnostic on Asherah, making sure the prototype Unit had no faults that would compromise her current mission. _He shirks combat duty to the point of approaching insubordination, but once actually deployed he fights with a fervor almost matching Soryu's._

" _Drop in one hundred and fifty seconds."_

 _Soryu…_

 _No, I must not become distracted. I am on duty._ Rei closed her lilin eyes, then opened them again. Her smaller set of hands tightened around the control yokes. _I will not allow myself to dwell on an irritation that is not even present._

She concentrated, and felt the rod depth motors in her heart shift. The timer on her psychic HUD sped up, blurring forward to settle on a new number. _Output level 3: 271:51 hours to shutdown._

" _Drop in one hundred and twenty seconds."_

They'd been briefed at a breakneck pace by Misato on the flight towards Old Tokyo: a foolish attempt to produce a facsimile of an Evangelion had resulted in a runaway automaton with a faulty boiling-water reactor on board. Their assignment was to stop and disable the machine, and contain it in the event of a reactor meltdown. Fortunately, since it was not an angel, it possessed no AT field - and thus they would not be limited by a handful of minutes as their own internal reactors risked red-lining.

 _Diagnostics complete. Evangelion UNIT00 at 100% battle strength. Reactor at 99.4% fuel. Synchronicity at 39.1% with .1% variance. 251 +/- 2 green links active. 36 waveform convergence points._

 _Hardware Diagnostic results: Link circuit normal. Uplinks normal. AT augments normal. Musculature normal. Gyroscopes normal. Subsystems and onboard computers normal. Comms normal._

" _Drop in ninety seconds."_

Rei shifted her internals again.

 _Output level 2: 126:31 minutes to shutdown._

Rei opened her ocular, and her cockpit HUD filled with the view of the open sky beneath her.

 _Evangelions cannot use parachutes. This will be a test of our capability - airborne deployment is not a sortie scenario that was ever expected to be used with these units. There have been no simulations, and the first live test is now._

" _Drop in sixty seconds."_

They were coasting low above the cloud layer. Not far ahead, the clouds thinned out, and the blasted ruins of Old Tokyo were visible.

 _This body is 10.52 years - this body is roughly thirteen years old - its heart has - its core is - it - no. No. Focus._

Rei closed her eyes, silencing her thoughts one by one until her mind was utterly quiet. All that existed in her world was the soft hum of the bright entity that posed as her soul, and the whispering hiss of the remnant of herself locked in Asherah's core.

" _Drop in thirty seconds."_

 _Will the Commander be proud of me?_ She already knew the answer, but the thought intruded like a persistent insect finding gaps in a window screen. Commander Ikari would not care about a civilian matter; indeed, even slaying angels was no more than was expected of her. From time to time, the Commander would grace her with a gruff _well done, Rei_ if she had completed some sort of special task in an exemplary manner, but such moments were few and far between. Praise from the Commander was to be earned, and never received as a gift - and no one else would ever -

" _Pretty good, for a test jockey…!"_

Rei snapped her eyes open, doubling down on her meditative discipline. _I will not be distracted. Focus._

Backhanded though it was, the compliment had shaken Rei more than she cared to admit. _Camaraderie_ was an utterly alien concept to her, and yet the Second Child had simply given it - unasked and unearned.

" _Drop in ten seconds. Nine. Eight."_

Rei glanced over at the image of Shinji on her HUD. His eyes were narrow and his shoulders were set.

" _Seven. Six. Five."_

Below them, the massive mecha was visible - stumbling across the expansive wasteland towards Atsugi. It looked even larger than an Evangelion, but its movements were horribly awkward and mechanical.

" _Four. Three. Two. One."_

And then they were falling.

 **X-X-X**

The armored float and propeller felt, more than anything, like a very bulky backpack. Asuka wondered with some trepidation whether she would even be able to fight effectively with a dead weight hanging off of Moloch's shoulders.

" _Moloch, we're going to launch you to the edge of the urban zone. As soon as you deploy, sprint for the coast - you've got a lot of ground to cover."_

" _Ja,_ understood." Asuka was still getting used to the extra displays cluttering her upper HUD and peripheral vision. It wasn't quite the same glut of battle data that could be seen in the Central Dogma ops room, but it was a lot more than she was used to accessing from an entry plug. "Any response from Baal yet?"

" _No response on any standard frequency. We'll keep trying."_

From outside the Eva, the cage P.A. system blared. " _Launch in ninety seconds. Lifting umbilicals and opening cage two."_

Asuka frowned. "Are you transmitting with NERV's UN callsign?"

"… _yes. Why wouldn't we be?"_

"It might…" Asuka shook her head. "Record a message to transmit without a callsign."

" _Without a callsign?"_

"That's an order," Asuka snapped back. "Go: ' _what'cha doing out there, four eyes?'_ Done. Send it until a response comes back."

" _Yessir,"_ Maya replied, although Asuka could hear the trepidation in her voice. _Not every day she gets asked to pass on message in english, I guess._

" _Launch in ninety seconds. Moving Evangelion Unit Two to the catapult."_ Asuka felt the cage base platform shift under her feet - and a moment later, the catapult clamps closed around her pauldron wings.

" _I've got a response!"_ It was one of the auxiliary staff, presumably the radiocom operator. " _Patching through to Moloch now."_

There was a hiss of static on the line, and a new _sound only_ comm window appeared - the voice replying in english. " _Is it ever good to hear from you, princess! But I have to admit, I was expecting Misato or the Commander, not a pilot!"_

"They're both away. I'm in command of this mission," Asuka said, switching back to Japanese. "And it _is_ a mission, because I don't know if you're aware, but there's an angel on your tail."

" _Yeah, noticed the ugly bastard about twenty minutes ago."_ Mari trailed off, and when she spoke again, her voice was subdued. " _It's moving a little faster than I can. If it catches Baal in this state, it'll be over for me, I'm afraid."_

Asuka swallowed a stab of panic, her grip on the control yokes tightening. "Hang tight," she said through clenched teeth. "And keep sprinting. Moloch is outbound to meet up with you."

As if on cue, the cage P.A. sounded again. " _Launch in thirty seconds. Clearing the catapult trajectory."_

Forcibly controlling her breathing, Asuka relaxed her grip on the control yokes. _Stay calm, stay cool, stay loose. It's just an angel._

… _just the first angel you'll be facing solo, since Mari seems too beat up to be much help. The first_ _real_ _angel, not seraph…_

Her eyes snapped open, and she looked up to the control room comm screen. "Maya, Aoba - keep your eyes peeled for seraphim. They used them once; no reason to believe they wouldn't a second time."

" _Got it."_ The tactical map in the corner of her display zoomed out, and overlayed with AT detector activity. " _None yet. We're keeping watch."_

"Good." Asuka's eyes narrowed. "Launch when ready!"

As she said it, the timer reached zero. The rails energized, and Moloch's platform shot upwards.

 **X-X-X**

" _Asherah, you have minor cracking in your left greave and sabaton. I'm not detecting any bone damage, but the muscle scan will take longer."_ Hyuga rattled off information rapidly. " _Ishtar, your landing shattered the knee plates in both greaves."_

" _So, don't get hit in the legs?"_ Shinji chuckled slightly.

"That is unlikely to be a problem, pilot Ikari," Rei said quietly. "Our target lacks substantial offensive capacity."

Shinji looked at the comm camera with an odd expression, but then focused on his HUD again. " _Here it comes."_

The mechanical goliath was striding forward, swinging its arms as it moved. This gave it the rather comical impression of being a huge, robotic gorilla.

" _Asherah, move to intercept. Ishtar, stand by to deploy an AT field in the event of a nuclear containment breach."_

Rei stood from the kneeling landing pose, and began running towards the oncoming robot.

 _I will take the brunt of the damage if the reactor goes critical. This is the logical choice - my unit is the most easily repaired, as well as the least valuable, and my life is of no consequence. The captain's tactical acumen is impressive._

There was an earthshaking _crash_ as Rei slammed into the machine, impacting its center mass with Unit 00's braced elbow. She followed up with a straight punch from the back shoulder.

Jet Alone staggered backwards, almost falling over on legs driven by inadequate control software. Its chestplate was dented, and cracked where her elbow had struck, but the mech was not substantially damaged.

"Target appears more heavily armored than expected," she noted, readying herself to follow up.

She didn't get a chance.

Jet Alone lashed out with a fist, catching Asherah in the gut. Rei jerked as the LCL was violently ejected from the lungs of her lilin body, and she stepped back, swaying. She expected the mech to attack again as she was weakened, but before it could get a chance, a huge purple shape slammed into it.

" _Misato, you said this thing wasn't coded to defend itself!"_ Shinji sounded angry. He'd moved forward and grabbed both of Jet Alone's arms, but the machine certainly wasn't proving easy to keep hold of.

Curiously, it was Ritsuko's voice that replied. " _It shouldn't be! The test specs said its systems weren't armed. All it was supposed to do was walk!"_

"Our parameters have changed." Rei's voice was still soft. "Its combat software is not advanced, but it is still a far greater threat than anticipated. Captain, requesting permission to use destructive force."

Currently, Rei and Shinji were under orders to engage and disable Jet Alone, without damaging it enough to risk cracking the reactor case and releasing irradiated heavy water or unprotected fuel rods - for this reason, they were forbidden from targeting central systems, and had been deployed without ranged weaponry. _Destructive Force_ would mean allowing them to stop the robot by any means necessary, regardless of the damage done to it or its bulky reactor.

"… _permission granted,"_ Misato finally replied, grinding the words out through gritted teeth. " _But if you must cause a nuclear accident, do_ _try_ _to limit the splash zone."_

"Yes," Rei acknowledged, composed as ever.

 _Soryu would be able to bring it down without damaging the reactor._ Rei's eyes narrowed for a second, but this time she didn't fight the thought. There seemed to be little point in keeping her focus when thoughts of Asuka came up.

 _No person, or phenomenon, has been able to repeatedly divert my attention in such manner before Soryu._

She didn't let it keep her from combat effectiveness, however. Shinji was still struggling to restrain the robot's arms, but his grip seemed to be holding. Rei stepped to the opportunity, slamming the heaviest punch she could muster into its forward armor.

The machine's casing caved under the strike, and a crack formed in the damaged metal. Rei drew back, preparing a follow-up, when Jet Alone abruptly stopped trying to wrench its arms free and instead lashed out with its right leg.

Its kick was low, and Rei's left greave was already damaged. There was an echoing _boom_ as the main ADNR plate split down its center, and several splinters of orange hyperdiamond scattered over the blasted earth of the dead zone.

Rei stepped back quickly, moving her weakened leg behind her. "You were correct, pilot Ikari. We must avoid being struck where our armor is compromised."

Shinji gave the camera that strange look again, but then focused on the mech he was grappling.

Each arm that Unit 01 gripped was too strong for an evangelion arm to overpower alone. The purple eva abruptly released one arm and slammed her elbow down onto Jet Alone's back, staggering it slightly; a moment later, his eva had both hands on a single arm.

Shinji let out a growl of exertion as he wrenched the control yokes, and the mech's arm snapped, letting out a shriek of deforming steel as its superstructure was ripped apart.

Unfortunately for Shinji, this meant that he no longer had a controlling hold on Jet Alone - which immediately turned to face Unit 01, swiveling 180 degrees at the waist.

" _Since when can it do that?!"_ Misato yelled.

A steel hand clamped around Unit 01's neck, and on her HUD, Rei could see Shinji dropping the control yokes to clutch at his throat. It was a foolish move - his synchronicity was still under 50%, and thus letting go of the manual controls would cause a loss of strength and coordination that would make it difficult for him to free himself.

 _Jet Alone cannot be allowed to damage Ishtar, or injure pilot Ikari._

Rei stepped forward and grabbed the first anchor that her hand could close around,yanking hard and pulling the mech off Unit 01. There was a horrible creaking, then a hiss.

She'd grabbed a control rod. And in manhandling the giant machine, the rod insertion seal had been damaged; a jet of superheated heavy steam was leaking from around the cracked boron.

"The reactor shielding has been breached," Rei reported tonelessly. "Damage to a control rod has left a leak, currently emitting gaseous deuterium oxide. The full extent of nuclear hazard is not known."

" _Fuck. Acknowledged, Asherah. Move to contain the leak with AT fields as soon as practical."_

Unit 01 got to its feet, a little unsteadily. Shinji looked shaken, but still determined.

" _It's damaged, Ayanami. We can do this."_

The strength in Shinji's voice was surprising, but Rei didn't let herself dwell on it.

"Yes," she replied, her eyes narrowing slightly.

 **X-X-X**

The ballast and propeller backpack was heavy as hell and just as irritating to maneuver in, but Asuka admitted - to herself, if no one else - that the mission wouldn't exactly have gone well if she'd tried to do without. Sure, Unit 02 could walk on the abyssal plain pretty easily; but the angel was attacking Mari on the surface, and the square-cube law dictated that Evangelions simply could not swim unassisted.

" _The sixth angel is underwater. I'd guess it's not breaching because it's trying to take Baal by surprise. Its speed and last known location suggest that it'll reach its target in about two hundred and forty seconds."_

"Got it," Asuka murmured. "I'm at maximum speed. What's my ETA?"

" _About two hundred and ten seconds, if Baal keeps course."_

Asuka cursed vividly in german. "Cutting that one a little fucking close," she murmured.

" _Nothing we can do about that, Moloch. The aquatic combat equipment is as fast as we can make it."_

"Noted." Asuka flicked a button on her right controller - while thought commands generally worked for a standard deployment, the command software suite was not as compatible with the uplink. "Baal, I'm relaying your comm to the control room. What's your status? How bad?"

Mari actually hesitated before replying. " _Pretty roughed up, to be honest,"_ she said at last. The 'sound only' window abruptly resolved into a grainy image of the british pilot's head and shoulders; Asuka winced at the ragged edge where her left plugsuit sleeve should have been. " _Left arm is straight up gone; left foreleg and right hind leg are both feeling a little less than fully responsive. Can't even begin to tell you the total armor damage. Reactor is under half fuel."_

" _Scheisse,_ four eyes," Asuka began, before remembering that she should be using callsigns. "How'd you manage to do that to yourself?"

" _That's not for battle comms, princess, sorry - secure lines only. I promise I'll tell you later, kay?"_

"Roger," Asuka replied, though she gritted her teeth. _Just how deep do the smoke and mirrors go? Seems like everyone in NERV and their mothers are sitting on black ops and classified projects… at least I trust Mari to actually make good on that promise._

" _Contact in sixty seconds."_ Despite initial hesitation, Maya seemed to have warmed up to being first officer to Asuka. There wasn't a trace of disdain or disapproval in her voice.

"Acknowledged," Asuka replied, narrowing her eyes. "I'll see if I can add our own AT sensors to your data feeds. I want you to triangulate a position on that angel if you can."

" _Will do. Two Evangelions should be enough to give us an accurate location point, but you won't be able to pull sensor data from Baal until you're able to sync a closer connection."_

"What does that mean?" Asuka deadpanned.

" _It means you have to get to contact range first. Speaking of: forty seconds."_

"Thanks." Asuka's armored hands tightened around the B-type gauss harpoon gun that she was equipped with. While it would have difficulty piercing an AT field alone, all it took was one hook - the eva could then pull close with the harpoon cable and engage with knives.

" _We have little to no battle data on this angel, other than what we can glean from its looks. Caution and pre-engagement reconnaissance are advised, if possible."_

"Acknowledged," Asuka murmured. A second later, Mari echoed the sentiment.

The familiar pulsing pressure of a strong AT field was now a distinctive presence in Asuka's perception, and what had felt like one signature was now two - one behind the other, but closing quickly.

"Baal, I'm going to try and engage behind you. Keep heading for New Yokosuka."

" _Don't give me that, princess. I've got your back."_

Asuka narrowed her eyes. "That's _Moloch_ to you, and that's an _order,_ Baal."

Mari was silent for a moment, fixing the camera with a hard look, but then she relented. " _Fine, but I'm cutting speed by twenty percent and that's final. If shit hits the fan I'm not gonna run out on you."_

" _Contact in ten seconds!"_

Asuka angled her head up. Some distance away, a wake was visible on the ocean surface above her. _That must be Baal._

The dark spot against the deep blue backdrop, further away but closing fast, had Asuka a lot more worried.

" _Tootles, princess!"_

" _Moloch, Baal has passed over your position. Data relay link has connected successfully."_

A moment later, Aoba's voice came over the comm. " _Holy shit! How are you still_ _mobile,_ _Baal?! You're a fucking wreck!"_

" _Manual sync control keeping me from feeling the worst of it, mostly."_

 _Man, all this chatter makes it hard to focus._ Asuka's eyes widened at the thought. _Scheisse, is this how Misato feels_ _all the time_ _?_

The distant speck grew larger, forming into an ominously finned shape.

"I have contact with the angel," Asuka said. She tried as hard as she could to keep a rushed tremor out of her voice, but doubted her success.

The comms abruptly went silent, the mission taking priority in everyone's minds.

"Its course has veered off Baal slightly. It's heading for me now, I think."

The shape continued to grow. It was now obviously larger than the submerged evangelion - and when it opened its mouth, it revealed a maw worthy of swallowing whole ships. Each tooth was as long as Unit 02's forearm.

"Oh, _mein Gott. Gott im Himmel…"_

With a powerful sweep of its tail, the monster shot forward. Asuka twisted and rolled, her propellers whining at the strain - and the angel missed her by what could not have been more than a few feet.

 _Output Level 1: 19:41 minutes to shutdown. 4:59 minutes to red line._

The leviathan banked, slowing abruptly, but not quite stopping. It didn't immediately rush Asuka's position - in fact, it seemed to hesitate for a moment.

Then a ripple of its fins sent it twisting back on course, away from Unit 02 and in the direction of the wake on the surface.

"Oh, fuck you!" Asuka primed the harpoon gun. "You're not leaving this to chase down my sister, you _gottverdammt_ overgrown goldfish!"

She focused as hard as she could on projecting an AT spike, firing the harpoon a second later.

The water flash-boiled as orange energy collided with blue, and the projectile bounced harmlessly off the angel's shield.

" _Oh, hell, I just got your sensor readings from that. Its AT field is a_ _lot_ _stronger than Shamshel's… it's a real tank."_

However, despite the harpoon's ineffectiveness, it definitely seized the Angel's attention. The beast halted and turned to face Unit 02 once again, opening its gargantuan mouth.

" **E** _I_ **T** _H_ **E** _R_ **P** _R_ **E** _Y_ **W** _I_ **L** _L_ **S** _U_ **F** _F_ **I** _C_ **E."**

Asuka shuddered, as much from the sight as from the awful voice in her entry plug. The three-quarters view offered a better perspective on the scale of the thing - It was already the size of an aircraft carrier, and over a third of its length was mouth and jaw.

 _It could swallow two evas whole…_

" _N_ **O** _L_ **I** _L_ **I** _N_ **I** _S_ **S** _A_ **F** _E_ **F** _R_ **O** _M_ **G** _A_ **G** _H_ **I** _E_ **L."**

"Are you guys hearing that?" Asuka said, her voice low and wary.

" _Hearing what?"_ The perplexed tone in Maya's voice was an answer in itself.

"Nothing. Nevermind." Asuka narrowed her eyes.

She quickly pressed the harpoon retrieval lever, and the huge spike whipped out of the depths and back towards her harpoon gun. At the same moment, the angel swept its powerful tail and shot forward.

"Oh, _fuck!"_

Asuka tried to swerve away again, but she was too close and the angel was too fast. While it didn't quite catch her torso - a blow which might have caused instant desynchronization - but Unit 02's right arm was trapped in its mouth as a tooth pierced her shoulder.

To her credit, Asuka did not scream, but a trickle of red tainted the LCL as she bit her tongue. The armor and skeletal integrity readings on her HUD abruptly flickered into red.

" _Moloch! You've taken severe damage. You need to disengage and fall back!"_

"I'm fucking… _working on it,_ thanks!" Asuka yelled back, her voice thick from the swelling bite in her tongue. "It's got my fucking arm!"

Mari's comm channel opened again, showing the British pilot wearing a worried expression. " _That's it - I'm turning this evangelion around, princess!"_

"And just what do you think _you_ can do to help, four eyes?" The angel nosed downwards into a dive, and Asuka shifted the harpoon gun as she was dragged down.

" _I can fucking distract it, if nothing else!"_

"You're on the _surface,_ four eyes!"

" _Baal's B-type gear has a dive function!"_

Asuka was about to bite out a response, but the entry plug shook violently as the angel opened its mouth and slowed, sending the bleeding Eva tumbling forward from the momentum.

Then it swept its tail again, charging forward, and bit once more.

Asuka gagged, a thin stream of bile mixing with the blood in her mouth. For a moment her senses fled her, leaving only the choking agony of huge teeth rending her lungs and intestines.

 _At least it didn't hit the entry plug, or core,_ she thought, her head foggy and unfocused. _I… I guess I know how Shinji felt fighting Shamshel, now._

Her head felt light, and her eyes began to lose focus. She could tell her sync was dropping in response to the severe damage - without looking at the readouts, she knew it couldn't be above sixty percent. The shock had triggered her reactor safety, dropping it to output level two and shutting down her unit's AT field.

A small but shrill alarm brought her back to herself, and she looked up. She immediately felt a sickening jolt of fear at the sight, its icy clutches biting through even the burning agony of the injury.

A bright red warning was flashing on Asuka's HUD.

 _BALLAST TANKS PUNCTURED - B-TYPE AQUATIC COMBAT EQUIPMENT COMPROMISED_

Her heart dropped like a stone. Without the ballast tanks, Unit 02 could not float herself - she was effectively a casualty of battle now, whether she liked it or not. It was impossible to fight in the ocean without functional B-type equipment. Asuka hung her head, letting despair wash over her.

An image briefly flickered through her mind's eye - an orange Eva, Unit 00, knocked to her knees with a plasma whip curled around her head and wrist.

 _Rei doesn't give up, even when it looks hopeless._ The despair quickly gave way to resentment and anger - much more familiar and welcome emotions, to Asuka's mind. _I'll be damned if I let her carry off the title of toughest pilot again!_

The German teenager clenched her teeth, fighting to keep her thoughts clear through a haze of pain and terror.

 _Moloch can no longer swim. If it drops me it's all over. And it isn't stupid - with Mari still mobile, its smartest move is to drop me for later and engage the actual threat._

As if on cue, the angel opened its mouth again, letting the helpless evangelion slide off of its upper teeth.

"Oh no you fucking don't," Asuka growled, as she slammed the trigger on the harpoon gun.

Gaghiel had broken her own defensive AT field, but it had been forced to drop its own in order to effectively bite her. The harpoon sank more than half its length into the back of the angel's throat, the barbed spikes shooting out to anchor it as it did so. The angel didn't even twitch.

The harpoon gun had approximately one thousand meters of thick graphene-composite cable on its winch, which was currently freewheeling loose. Asuka let herself fall, trying to look as helpless as possible.

 _If I'm lucky, that arschloch will think I'm thoroughly incapacitated, and ignore the parting shot… given the size of the ugly fucker, it can't have been much more than a sting anyway._

Sure enough, Gaghiel seemed convinced of its victory. It hung motionless for a minute as Unit 02 sank, then closed its mouth violently; Asuka bit her lip, but the cable held. She'd guessed correctly, and the angel's teeth were too widely spaced and lacking in bladed edges to damage the ultra-high-strength graphene. The beast twisted its fins and turned back towards the surface.

Unit 02 was sinking rapidly, and the light above Asuka was dimming fast. However, she could still see the faint wake of Unit 05 approaching - and then the wake resolved into an actual image of the four-legged eva, as the ballast tanks on her legs filled and sank.

Kicking her spider-like legs behind her, Unit 05's ballasting was much more safely positioned than Unit 02's had ever been. _Take notes, acting commander Soryu,_ Asuka thought to herself. _Maybe you can get them to redesign the main line aquatic combat gear._

The pulsing pain in her gut and shoulder was still making her gasp, and black dots threatened at the edge of her vision. Gaghiel continued moving further away, swimming up towards the surface as the red evangelion sank into the depths.

 _Okay, that's your breather. Time to get back in the game, Asuka._

She twisted the harpoon gun, wrapping the cable twice around Unit 02's left wrist. A second later she cringed, as the line jerked taut and it felt like her arm was being ripped from its socket - but the cable and anchor both held, and Asuka actually began to rise slightly.

 _Got you, fucker! Hooked like a fish!_

Gaghiel thrashed, suddenly painfully aware of the barb and the weight hanging off it. It whipped its tail and banked, turning to confront Asuka once more.

" _Oh no you fuckin' don't!"_

Unit 05's lone arm latched onto the nearest fin. Mari pulled hard, dragging herself towards the angel; a shimmering orange light formed around Unit 05's helmet horn.

Asuka reached up with her injured arm, gripping and pulling the harpoon line. She nearly swallowed her tongue as a fresh lance of pain struck her shoulder, but she persisted, hauling herself up the cable towards her enemy.

Meanwhile, Unit 05 pulled herself closer still and struck. The helmet horn wasn't very sharp, but it was propelled by the strength of an evangelion-grade mechanical prosthetic, and augmented with the arcane energies that only the titanic biomechs could wield. There was a blinding flash of blue and orange energy, and a plume of bright blue blood filled the water.

Gaghiel twisted again, trying to throw off the clinging pest, but Mari wasn't having any of it. She snapped her jaw restraints and bit down on the fin, gripping at two points, and then reversed all her propellers. The angel found itself trapped - pinned between the grip of two bloodied but tenacious evangelion units.

Asuka reopened her comm. "I think its core is in its mouth, Baal," she said, fighting to keep the exertion from effecting her voice. "Keep it pinned, and I'll see if I can take it out."

" _You got it, Moloch."_ Unit 05 let go with her arm, but kept her teeth in the fin. She quickly retrieved a prog-knife from her pauldron and stabbed it into the angel's flesh. " _Handhold, acquired!"_

Gaghiel seemed incapable of deciding which enemy to face first, and Asuka intended to capitalize as much as she could on that hesitation. Biting back a screech, she pulled again, steadily climbing the cable.

 **X-X-X**

Jet Alone lay destroyed, its components strewn across the wasteland behind them. Radioactive heavy water had leaked everywhere, but the evangelions' AT fields had contained the steam clouds adequately - and no unprotected fuel rods had escaped the damaged reactor casing. Cleanup of the hot zone would be fairly straightforward: the mech body and any radioactive debris would be retrieved and contained, as much contaminated soil as would be practical would be excavated and treated similarly, and then the area would be hastily marked with the appropriate warning signage and abandoned.

 _NUCLEAR ACCIDENT SITE_

A familiar, terrifying trefoil design on a yellow background.

 _Radiation Hazard Zone: DO NOT ENTER._

It was far from the only such dead zone in the world; in fact, it wasn't even the only one in the _Itto Sanken_ wasteland. Most active nuclear power plants had suffered catastrophic failures during the brief but bloody natural disasters that had been triggered by the Second Impact, and many waste containment facilities had deteriorated from neglect as humanity struggled to survive the cataclysm. The panicked, reckless wars that had marked the weeks and months following the disaster had also left their scars on the globe - some biotoxic, some chemical, and some nuclear.

 _The land will be left to cool over the next handful of centuries or millennia. The children will be confined within their war machines until the exterior decontamination of the Eva armor is deemed sufficient for them to safely exit in the protection of helmeted plugsuits._

"Ritsuko, what have I told you about smoking on airplanes?!"

The scientist blinked, looking away from the window to glance down at the small cigarette in her fingers. "This is a NERV transport. I can basically do whatever I want, Misato."

The captain frowned. " _Please_ don't smoke on NERV aircraft, then. Better?"

Ritsuko almost snapped back a smarmy retort, but caught herself. _After sabotaging Jet Alone, you owe her more than this._

She pinched the ember from the end of the cigarette, and tossed it into a nearby wastebasket. "Sorry."

Misato's eyes narrowed, and a playful smirk crossed her face. "Ahh, so that's how I get you to look after yourself? I guilt you into it? Well, I can work with that."

A ghost of a smile flickered in Ritsuko's eyes, but then died.

"How are the pilots doing?" She said eventually.

"Shinji's a bit irritated that he can't exit before we return and decontaminate. Rei is… well, Rei."

 _Rei is, indeed, Rei._ Ritsuko kept her expression perfectly neutral despite the urge to wince again. _To one not privy to the details of her existence, she is a difficult creature to describe._

"We'll be landing at NERV-J airfield soon," Ritsuko said softly, still gazing out the plane's window. "The wash bays shouldn't take more than two or three hours to remove the critical radhazard."

"Two or three hours is a long time to a teenage boy." Misato's voice was dry. "And it'll be half an hour before we land and unload the Evas."

"I…" Ritsuko's shoulders fell, and she still didn't turn to face her girlfriend. "There's no way to speed up decontamination. I'm sorry."

Misato frowned, her eyes filling with concern. "Hey, Rits. You okay?"

"Of course I'm not okay," the scientist snapped. "I just sabotaged a _nuclear reactor,_ salted another half-dozen square kilometers of earth, and harmed two children to do it. I've had better days."

The captain tilted her head, although she didn't move to comfort Ritsuko.

"Well… this is an interesting turnaround," she said at length.

Ritsuko smirked, though it was a hollow smile. "Isn't it just?" Her hands reflexively went to her pockets.

"Uh, Rits?" Misato arched an eyebrow. Ritsuko looked down at her hands, uttered a curse, and stuffed the pack of cigarettes back in her pocket.

"Sorry." This time, the word was laced with a bitter tone. "This is fucking killing me. The _greater good_ … it gets harder to believe that every day."

"Does the commander often order you to do black-ops kind of things?" Misato said, her voice inquisitive but cautious. "I've been paying attention - hearing him whisper about some kind of 'scenario' with the sub-commander. From what you've told me, NERV isn't above both bending and breaking law and morality alike… and I've seen those vaults of secrets in the lower levels, or at least their locked doors. Even in a facility as big as NERV-J, there shouldn't be anywhere the third officer is barred from."

Ritsuko let out a short, sharp laugh. "You don't know the half of it. Hell, even I don't know _all_ of it." A brief memory of Rei's face blinked in her mind's eye. "But Jet Alone is certainly not the _first_ time he's used me to deliver harm upon the undeserving for ill-defined purposes. Stopping… _them_ is a noble goal, but at this point no goal can excuse everything I've done."

"Not even you know all of it," Misato echoed, her expression thoughtful. "So no one does, except the commander himself."

"And Fuyutsuki, I think," Ritsuko corrected. _And possibly Rei, because who can tell with her._

"I'm not okay with that." Misato's eyes hardened. "I'm not okay with being ordered around on a shadow agenda. I'm going to find this shit out. _All_ of it."

Ritsuko clenched her teeth, swallowing a sick feeling in her gut. She retrieved her pack of cigarettes and stuck one between her lips, though she didn't move to light it.

"You're poking a hornet's nest, Misato," she murmured eventually. "Except the hornets drive unmarked black cars, and sting with silenced handguns."

"I know it's dangerous. Fortunately, I'll have help from the best."

Ritsuko quirked her brow.

"I'll have a world-class spy on one hand, and an inside woman on the other. Seems like a solid team to me."

"Kaji's stationed in the arctic. And is that a letter of conscription, _captain?"_

"He can still make anonymous phone calls and access the NERV network. And yes, it is. You owe me."

Ritsuko chuckled again, this time with a trace of actual levity. "I certainly can't argue with that."

 **X-X-X**

 _Fight! Fight! Fight!_

The blood and bile in the LCL had been filtered out by the circulation system, leaving Asuka with only tooth marks in her mouth and a hollow feeling that would soon be hunger. Neither bothered her enough to draw her notice.

 _Fight! Fight! Fight!_

She clenched her teeth harder and pushed her synchronicity back up, her concentration capping out just over 75%. The pain from her injuries increased in kind, and there was a series of small prickles in her human skin as the plugsuit sections over her abdomen began overloading and burning out.

Asuka only ground her teeth harder and hauled faster, steadily pulling herself up to the leviathan she'd harpooned.

" _Jesus, princess - you doing okay down there?"_

Asuka's gaze flicked upwards to where Unit 05 was still pinning the angel, her propellers in full reverse. "I'm _fine,"_ she growled, her voice thick from mouth pain and adrenaline frenzy.

Another voice clicked on - Maya's. " _Asuka, Moloch's limiter system is overloaded! You're at risk of mental contamination or berserking - you need to fall back!"_

" _Fuck_ that. I'm going to _destroy_ this motherfucker." Asuka clenched her teeth again, vaguely noting that her canines and premolars felt unusual. "If you don't have anything useful to say, then shut up!"

She redoubled her efforts, climbing even faster - and Gaghiel thrashed harder, apparently sensing the fury of the beast below it. The bloody puncture in her shoulder burned and the eviscerating bite through her guts flickered dangerously close to breaking her resolve every time she shifted. She could barely feel anything below her belt.

 _Good thing I don't need to fucking walk._

Asuka kept pulling, closing in on her target. There was maybe sixty meters of distance left - the height of an Eva, no more. Gaghiel twisted harder.

 _It doesn't have any gottverdammt eyes! How can it see me getting closer?!_

She reached up again, grabbing a new handhold - and Gaghiel pulled free of Mari's grip, its fin ripping as it yanked out of of Unit 05's teeth.

" _Scheisse!"_

Gaghiel swooped down towards Unit 02, its maw opening like the jaws of hell. Asuka gunned her propeller into its engine's redline, veering out of the monster's path just in time.

" _Princess?! Asuka!"_

The angel continued to dive, and suddenly Asuka felt herself dragged down instead of up. The twisting spirals and undulations were a clear giveaway of an attempt to buck her off.

 _It's running away from Mari, trying to fight me alone. It thinks that'll give it an advantage._

Asuka gritted her teeth again, pulling herself towards the angel despite the added water drag pushing her unit back. Gaghiel kept swimming downwards, pulling both of them into the abyssal darkness.

 _One more! Just one more!_

A final pull, and Unit 02 was right at the corner of the angel's vast maw. The darkness around them was now thick and oppressive, but Asuka didn't turn on her external lighting. _If it makes me harder to see, I'll do this by touch._

The water pressure bore down in Unit 02's armor, registering as a faint discomfort through the link circuit. Asuka ignored it, wrapping the cable around her weakened right hand and wrist.

Gaghiel twisted again, and the cable jerked, swinging Unit 02 against the side of the angel. There was a bright shimmer of blue as she bounced off.

"That won't fucking do," Asuka hissed to herself as she increased to output level one and engaged her AT field.

Or, at least, as she _tried_ to.

Her eyes scanned quickly over her HUD, and she sucked in a deep breath at the results.

 _Comm: UNIT05/Baal: -SIGNAL LOST-_

 _Comm: Control room: -SIGNAL LOST-_

She glossed over a few dozen warnings about the state of her ravaged armor or half-destroyed evangelion body.

 _Systemic damage exceeds threshold for combat; reactor safe mode engaged. Output level 1 available only under special override. In lieu of automatic transmission from control, please request an authorization code from your commanding officer._

"Special override?! Are you _fucking_ kidding me?" Asuka slammed her fist down on the control yoke. "I _am_ the commanding officer here! Work, damn you!"

The prompt resolutely remained, and the mental signal to activate level 1 still brought forth no result.

Asuka felt her anger mounting, the boiling pool of fury that always lurked in the back of her head threatening to spill over. She let go of the control yokes, and grabbed the central panel in the tightest grip should could muster - randomly jamming her thumbs into several buttons, but she was beyond caring, especially since the analogue controls for an evangelion were primarily cosmetic anyway.

 _Asuka?_

The presence of the evangelion around her felt heavier and more alien than ever before. "Don't _do_ this to me, Moloch," she whined pitifully. "You're supposed to be my warmachine… you're supposed to do what I tell you, not what your stupid _codes_ say!"

 _Aaaassssuuuuuukaaaaaa…_

The depth pressure - or possibly sync stress; at this point she couldn't tell the difference - kept building, reaching almost unbearable levels.

" _Please,"_ Asuka hissed, finally abandoning her pride and illusion of control. " _Gottverdammt_ \- please, Moloch! Wake up! _Fight,_ you stupid piece of -"

Her plea was abruptly cut off as she jerked in shock. Though the Eva's eyes were still online, the HUD displays that framed the visual input all simultaneously blinked into static, then returned as nondescript red boxes with ERROR as their only message.

" _Was zür Holle?"_

And then she was filled with rage, her vision streaking with red as a mad wrath seized her. She was only vaguely aware of the last message that flickered across the HUD, before everything except the raw visual input disappeared.

 _EVA-UNIT02_ _SYSTEM CRASH_

 _FATAL LIMITER ERROR! FORCING SUBSYSTEM SHUTDOWN_

 _STATUS: BERSERK_

Asuka grinned evilly, and felt her jaw restraints break as she did so. She didn't need a heads-up display to tell her that the reactor was behaving properly now - she could _feel_ her AT field gathering power.

She raised a clawed hand and struck, ripping through Gaghiel's AT field in a single blow and leaving deep gouges in the angel's flesh. Asuka vaguely noticed she could see clearly again - then laughed as she realized her four eyes were glowing like a set of massive floodlights.

Gaghiel banked hard away from her, still desperately trying to shake her off without any limbs or surfaces to scrape against - but the graphene cable looped around her wrist held resolutely strong, proving an excellent anchor.

Asuka struck again, this time ripping through the lip to bring her claws against a tooth of the upper jaw.

 _Its core is in its mouth. You can do this, Asuka! You can do this, Moloch! Kill! Kill! Kill!_

" _W_ **H** _A_ **T** _M_ **O** _N_ **S** _T_ **E** _R_ **S** _H_ **A** _V_ **E** _T_ **H** _E_ **L** _I_ **L** _I_ **N** _W_ **R** _O_ **U** _G_ **H** _T_ **?** _!"_

Asuka noticed it didn't open its mouth to speak the suspiciously flawless german syllables - effectively confirming that it was telepathy, not speech.

She kicked her armored feet onto the bottom lip and braced her shoulder under her hand, shifting her grip from the tooth to the gum. Then she pushed upwards.

The wound in her gut burned as if she'd drunk molten steel straight from a crucible, but the overwhelming fury pushed through the pain as if it wasn't even there. Asuka didn't know if the berserker rage was actually healing the injury or if it was merely dulling the pain - nor did she particularly care. She roared incoherently, and pushed again.

She felt like Atlas himself when the strength of her back and legs won out, heaving the monster's jaws open with an effort that deserved every measure of the word _titanic._ Her shoulder slipped under the almighty force of Gaghiel's bite, and she staggered forward.

There was a flash of agony in her left leg. Asuka didn't spare it a thought - she was inside the beast's mouth, and closing in on its heart.

She made to get her limbs under her and crawl, but found one leg lighter than the other. Looking down, she was treated to the sight of her left leg terminating in a ragged stump just below the knee.

 _I didn't need both arms at full strength, I didn't even need an intact torso - I sure as hell don't need both legs. This arschloch is going to fucking die._

Gaghiel's tongue thrashed, slamming her against the roof of its mouth, but she sank her claws into its tongue and held tightly. Grimacing, she began crawling forward over the unstable surface.

 _There it is. There's the core._

Half of her armor was broken or bitten off, she'd lost a leg, and her shoulder and abdomen were crippled - but it was all worth it. It was worth it, for the victory.

Asuka lunged the last few meters, sinking her claws into the flesh around the red orb, and squeezed.

Her vision filled with blinding light a mere fraction of a second before she finally, _finally_ passed out.

 **X-X-X**


	9. Aquatic Combat Equipment, part 3

**CW for prescription drug misuse in this chapter**

 **X-X-X**

 _ **Chapter 9**_

 **X-X-X**

There was a soft, low beeping, and dull red light. Slowly, Asuka opened her eyes.

Her HUD was entirely dark, but for a small notification box: _Fuel at 28.9%._ _Reactor output level 4 - 3.32 years to shutdown. Current power level sufficient for entry plug systems and life support ONLY._ The red glow was from the entry plug's emergency light; its main light looked undamaged, but was either nonfunctional or shut down to conserve power.

A throbbing headache pulsed through her skull, and ghost pains burned in her shoulder. Her stomach and left leg just felt eerily numb, and when she looked down - with some difficulty - she could see burned circuitry through the damaged surface of the plugsuit.

Asuka slumped back against the seat, half- closing her eyes. The LCL - despite its oxygen content - felt uncomfortably thick around her, turning the act of drawing breath into a painful and arduous effort; the nerve injuries on her torso definitely didn't help in that regard.

She gathered her hazy focus, bringing her mind to bear on the interface. Slowly, the rest of the entry plug system booted up.

 _Synchronicity capped at 10% while in low power mode. Entry plug interface active._

 _EVA-UNIT02 is CRITICALLY DAMAGED. Full activation is not recommended._

Rolling her eyes at the warning, Asuka brought up the evangelion's internal memory. She fast-forwarded through the mission until she found the frame where Unit 02's hands were around the angel's core. Playing it back in slow motion, she saw the red crystal shatter in the Eva's grip and the shards burst into brilliant white light.

Then the recording abruptly terminated, returning her to the dark visual display.

"Kill confirmed," Asuka idly remarked, her voice rough. _Verdammt… I never knew it was possible to knock an evangelion unconscious._

She raised her good arm, pressing the heel of her palm against her forehead. _Stress headache shouldn't be long now._ She blinked, looking over the HUD information, and something caught her eye.

 _Comm Status: Inactive_

Asuka blinked, starting a communication suite diagnostic with a mental gesture.

 _Command Level Telecom extensions: inoperable - unknown hardware failure_

 _Evangelion Telecom suite: operable - inactive_

Asuka muttered a curse, silently blaming the depth pressure of the abyssal plain for the hardware failure in her extensions. She took a deep breath, then powered up the standard comm.

"To anyone listening: this is evangelion unit two, callsign Moloch. I need recovery ASAP. Message repeats."

She looped the message and set to broadcast on all UN channels. Then, exhausted, she let go of the control sync and slumped against the chair. She could barely summon the energy to undo the seatbelt.

 _If it even allows me to eject the entry plug at this depth, the pressure would crush me like an egg in a hydraulic press. I'm stuck here until I get recovered - which is a bit of a toss-up, given that the distress signal will never reach the surface - or I die._ Asuka sighed softly. _Three years of power in life support mode. I know LCL hydrates us; is it also capable of providing basic nutrition, or will I just starve to death after forty days?_

 _Well, I suppose I always expected to die in the entry plug of a wrecked evangelion. Not from starvation, but war has many occupational hazards to choose from…_

With the link circuit closed down, exhaustion and neurotransmitter depletion abruptly caught up with her. Asuka was asleep the moment her eyes slid shut.

 **X-X-X**

Rei had been told that when they exited the decontamination process, the pilots should proceed to debriefing. However, the briefing room was empty when they arrived.

"Misato should be here, shouldn't she?" Shinji frowned. "This… this _is_ the right room for debriefing, right?"

"Misato is likely in the control room, Ikari," came Rei's soft reply.

Shinji turned, surprised she had spoken. "Really…? But she said she'd be here. Why would she be in the control room?"

Rei tilted her head by a fraction of a degree. "The hallway lighting indicates a red alert is in effect. It is likely that an angel attack is underway."

The color drained from Shinji's face. "An… an angel? Why didn't we get the call?!"

"We were already on deployment," Rei replied shortly, striding back over to the briefing room door.

"But - but an angel's more important than a malfunctioning robot!"

"The time and effort involved in extraction and redeployment would likely have been counterproductive," Rei droned back. "It seems possible that the remaining ops staff may have elected to deploy pilot Soryu alone."

" _What?!"_ Shinji seemed aghast. "Deploying a pilot with no backup - didn't they learn _anything_ from when I fought the first angel?"

 _The third angel,_ she mentally corrected, but decided against vocalizing the thought. "Pilot Soryu is demonstrably more capable than either of us, Ikari."

Shinji's shoulders slumped. "I can't argue with that," he muttered. "Still, _better_ doesn't mean she's invincible."

Rei was taken aback at the statement, and actually slowed her pace slightly.

 _Obviously, Soryu is not exempt from physical harm. But her fearless demeanor suggests no concern for that fact - if she could render herself invulnerable by force of determination alone, she would certainly do so._

An alien feeling made itself known, crawling down her spine and settling uncomfortably in the pit of her stomach.

 _If she is deployed alone, there is a greater risk that she may be hurt or killed. She is not replaceable._

"Ayanami?" Shinji cocked his head. "Are… you okay?"

Rei did not blink, but the jolt to her sense as she brought her eyes back into focus was an appropriate facsimile. She realized her hurried strides had slowed to a slow walk, and Shinji was now in front of her.

She gathered her focus, shifting her breathing back to a steady pattern and pushing the increasingly troublesome _distraction_ from her mind. Her walking pace increased until she exactly matched her previous stride.

"Huh? Okay, don't answer, I guess - hey, wait up!"

It took only a few short minutes for them to reach the Ops Center. What greeted them there was a somewhat unusual sight.

The control room was _quiet._ The occasional auxiliary staffer murmured a quiet update, but otherwise a tense hush permeated the air. Aoba seemed to have relaxed and leaned back, lacking any substantial involvement in the current operation; Maya and Misato both had their eyes glued to the big screen's satellite view. Hyuga was tapping away at his workstation.

"Did someone mess with my settings?" The lieutenant called suspiciously.

"If yes, blame Asuka," Maya said back, not diverting her attention.

Silence reigned once more. Then, abruptly, a comm window appeared on the screen - at first showing only static and ' _connecting…'_ but rapidly resolving into a grey slate with the words _EVA-UNIT05: BAAL_ across the top and _sound only_ across the center.

" _No sign of her on the first dive. I think her aquatic combat gear was compromised; I'm gonna have to go deeper. Preparing to dive in ten."_

"Belay that," Misato barked. "This is Ops Director Katsuragi speaking. Report, pilot."

" _Misato?!"_ Mari sounded surprised. " _I was told you were out of town, ma'am. Pilot Soryu took command of the defense -"_

"I've been briefed on the situation." Misato's voice was like steel. " _Report,_ pilot."

" _Yes, ma'am!"_ One could almost hear her voice snapping to attention. " _I lost communication with Moloch approximately an hour ago - the angel dragged her down and she wouldn't let go of the harpoon line. Ten minutes or so after I lost them, there was an upheaval indicating a massive undersea explosion."_

"An undersea explosion," Misato repeated. "One of the angels we've faced exploded violently when it was destroyed."

"You think she successfully took down the angel alone?" Maya seemed skeptical. "That angel was as colossal as it was powerful."

"Moloch wasn't armed with nuclear weaponry. If there was a massive deep-sea explosion, there are only two possibilities," Misato said - her voice meticulously calm. "Either the angel exploded when she destroyed it… or, Asuka triggered Moloch's explosive self-destruct."

The command crew fell quiet, with naught but the murmured background noise of the auxiliary staff to disturb the brittle silence.

 _This body is 10.53 years old and its heart has beat 443,273,518 times_.

But the tick of her heartbeat no longer brought the comforting quiet to Rei's mind. Instead, her heart thumped loudly in her ears, each pulse belting across her senses like the report of a firing howitzer.

 _Pilot Soryu may have triggered Moloch's self-destruct._

Mari's comm crackled again - this time, with a strained, nervous voice. " _You… really think she'd do that? Suicide bomb?"_

"If she thought it was the only option?" The faintest hint of a tremor brushed the captain's voice on the last syllable. "I don't even think she'd hesitate, if she was sure."

 _Pilot Soryu may have triggered Moloch's self-destruct._

The thought wouldn't leave her mind, for all the meagre effort she could spare to try. Visions of Moloch grappling a huge beast in the lightless depths and exploding into a fireball the size of an N2 burst flickered through her imagination.

 _It should have been me._ Rei felt shaken and sick - in fact, the sensation reminded her of the last time she'd suffered a concussion, only without the physical pain. _It should have been me. I should have been the one to die alone in the darkness. Pilot Soryu's uniqueness should not have been lost, not when my pale mimicry could have been destroyed instead._

"Based on location tracker data, the area that Moloch or… any _remains_ could have ended up…" Misato's composure was cracking, as she struggled to face the possibility that one of her adopted children might be KIA. "It isn't large. A few DSV's could scan the area pretty quickly, but we don't have any on hand at New Yokosuka, and it'd take time to bring them in from further out…"

" _Captain, requesting permission to dive again."_ Mari composed herself. " _An Eva can take any depth - well, maybe not the really deep trenches, but it can take the abyssal plain - and I'm here right now. I won't - I_ _can't_ _give up on her until I see the wreckage myself."_

"What's your fuel situation, Baal?" Misato managed, looking away from the screen.

" _Down to about a third. Ninety hours or thereabouts, if I stick to output level three. Plenty of time to get down there, check around and get back up again."_

"Permission granted."

Rei felt the tension subside slightly.

 _She is missing in action, not confirmed KIA. Whatever her fate, I will know soon. She may yet live._

As one, the command crew turned back to their stations. The red alert light above the big screen turned yellow.

" _Going off comms for a deep dive. If I'm not back up within 12 hours, then the angel got me. Ciao."_ Mari's comm window disappeared.

 _This body is 10.53 years old and its heart has beat 443,273,659 times._

Not once had Rei broken her calm and collected demeanor. However, the turmoil would not leave her mind no matter how hard she focused.

 _I have not yet lost function. But this… defect is clearly beyond control by mental discipline alone - I will have to take stronger measures._

"So, we'll know by tomorrow morning…" Misato murmured, turning to Rei and Shinji. "I'd suggest you two go home and catch some sleep. We still don't know the threat level here, and you two need to be as rested as possible if we still need to fight an angel."

"Yes," Rei answered, her voice as neutral as ever. As she turned to leave, however, Shinji spoke.

"Do we have to?" He insisted. "I want to be here when she gets back."

An irrational urge, to turn and join Shinji in his insistence to stay, seized hold of Rei - but she bit it back as quickly as it came.

 _Nothing good will come of lingering here, and the captain has given us orders._

The ops center door closed behind her, and she heard nothing more.

 **X-X-X**

Her apartment was empty as ever, and the evening air was still - the demolitions crews would have turned in for the night some time ago. Rei's feet trod the same scuffed footprint path in the dust as hundreds of times before.

Her usual schedule had been somewhat thrown off, but that was only to be expected when duty called. NERV often needed her on short notice, and she existed only to obey NERV's - the commander's - orders.

On a normal day, she would have taken her medications twenty-eight minutes ago. She had, however, long ago grown used to minor disruptions in that routine.

She walked over to her dresser and opened the bottles, counting out one dose of each. When she had finished, she reached for the beaker of water -

\- And stopped.

 _Doctor Akagi has told me that a side effect of this medication regimen is a limited capacity for emotional responses or emotional memory. It reduces my ability to feel._

An image of Asuka's determined face filled her mind's eye. Then the imaginary but _haunting_ image of Moloch exploding in the deep ocean -

 _Clearly, this side effect can be useful. It should help curb this unwanted fixation, if I increase my dose._

She carefully counted out the pills once more, doubling the already unnerving pile of drugs, and retrieved a syringe and the bottle of LCL.

Then, finally, she reached for the beaker of water.

 **X-X-X**

It was some hours before dawn when the comm crackled again. Maya and Ritsuko - the only NERV staff that regularly worked into the wee hours - immediately turned their attention back to the big screen.

The satellite view told them all they needed to know, even before the comm link had finished connecting.

" _I've got her! She's alive!"_

 **X-X-X**

The minute Mari staggered out of the entry plug in the recovery bay, she was limping across the catwalk to where a large medical team and the bulk of the recovery crews were swarming around the _much_ more severely damaged red evangelion.

"M- Miss! Pilot Illustrious! I need to check you over; you shouldn't strain yourself -"

Mari pivoted on her heel - momentarily swaying and struggling to keep her balance - and glared at the woman who was trailing behind her. " _My sister_ just got chewed up by an angel and then KO'd by a nuke-sized explosion. Don't tell me not to _strain_ myself."

The other woman's expression softened, but she didn't back off. "Pilot Soryu is already in the hands of the best medical staff NERV-J can offer. Sen- I mean, Doctor Akagi will be personally overseeing her treatment." She folded her arms. "Now please, _try_ not to be a stubborn soldier for a few minutes, and accompany me to D wing before I have to carry you."

Mari raised her eyebrow, looking the remarkably small woman up and down and mentally comparing her to her own, substantially larger frame. "I don't think you could carry me, shorty, even if I didn't put up a fight."

The woman's eyes narrowed. "First of all, that's first lieutenant Ibuki Maya to you, _warrant officer._ Second, are you really claiming you could put up much of a fight with sleep deprivation, acute synchronicity feedback shock, a pronounced limp, and what appears to be a paralyzed arm?" Maya smirked. "I'd be amazed if you managed a limp slap before you passed out on the floor. Third, you might be a difficult carry, but I have _no doubt_ that I could drag you there."

The english pilot opened her mouth and raised a finger, but before she could speak, Maya cut over her again. " _Also,_ in the time I've held you up here, the EMT's have already taken Asuka to D wing. So if you want to make sure she's okay, you might as well follow me _anyway."_

Mari made a face. "Ugh, you're good. I think I hate you now."

"Well, I'm paid to keep you and your war machines alive and ticking smoothly, not to be nice to you while I do it." Maya grabbed Mari's paralyzed hand. "Now, you can follow me or I can make good on my threat of dragging you. Your choice."

Without waiting for an answer, the lieutenant began walking - not too quickly to make it difficult to keep up, but with a strong step and posture to it. Mari was almost yanked off balance, and she stumbled, but managed to catch herself before she fell.

"You're cruel," she mumbled. "I'd be _so_ mad at you if you weren't cute."

"I'm not cruel, I've just been awake for twenty-three hours and on shift for twenty-two of them." Maya appeared to entirely ignore the flirt. "Now, Asuka is still unconscious, but I'll let you look in on her if you manage to stay standing that long. Does that work for you?"

"Not like I have much choice, is it?" Mari managed a tired smile. "Lead the way, lieutenant Ibuki."

 **X-X-X**


	10. Aftermath of Gaghiel

**Many thanks to Silvermoonlight GJ for their insights into planning this chapter, it probably wouldn't be anywhere near up to par otherwise**

 **Also shout out to guest reviewer 'Ransworn': thank you so much for your review, and I'm glad you're enjoying this fanfic! With regards to your criticisms, as someone estranged from my own genetic family, the idea of Asuka finding family in someone who was at first just a friend is not at all strange from my perspective - though I'm sorry that narrative element doesn't resonate with you. With regards to Misato and Ritsuko being together - well, it's difficult to swallow because it's a difficult relationship. One that'll soon be getting even more strained, in fact. Idk, I might even break them up completely if the story demands it; Misato is so morally inflexible and Ritsuko is complicit in so many dark secrets, there's no way they can have an easy time reconciling the gulf between them.**

 **Also if my prose seems a bit weird in this chapter I gotta warn you that I'm constantly switching between writing this and writing a high fantasy piece so I might not be sticking too well with my scifi writing procedures**

 **X-X-X**

 _ **Chapter 10**_

 **X-X-X**

 _Running, running through featureless white hallways under the glare of fluorescent lamps. I'm smaller, younger, dressed in a child-sized plugsuit. I can't run as quickly as the teenagers or adults, but it doesn't matter. I'm happier than I've ever been. This is the most important day of my life._

 _"Mama!"_

 _I haven't reached the door I'm looking for, but I call out anyway. Maybe my mama will hear me, even if the door is thick and padded._

 _I turn a corner, closing in on my target. The room is at the end of the hall. I don't like the room; everything about it and what it represents puts me off. I haven't been back here since the time the nurses had to pull mama's hands off my neck. But this time, I'm excited to be here._

 _Finally, I reach the door._

 _The handle is high up, almost level with my eyes. I reach up and grab it and pull. It's stiff, so stiff. Children shouldn't open it, so it's not designed for them. It's supposed to be hard to open. In fact, it should be locked._

 _It isn't locked today, but I don't think about it. I'm too excited._

 _Pulling the door open is another struggle - it's strong, which makes it heavy. But I can manage it. I'm good at managing alone._

 _"Mama!" The door opens slowly. I'm yelling. Father always told me not to yell indoors, but I don't care. "Mama! I took the test. They accepted me! Project E accepted me! I'm gonna be a pilot!"_

 _The silence doesn't mean anything; mama never talks much anymore. It doesn't bother me. I step through the door with all the confidence of a young, naive child._

 _"Mama…!"_

 _She isn't sitting on the bed like she normally is. Nor is she standing._

 _She's hanging from one of the light fixtures. There's something around her neck, and she isn't moving. Hanging right beside her is the doll, the devil doll, her replacement for a real daughter._

 _The doll swings slightly, even though there's no breeze. It twirls, slowly. Now it's facing me._

 _ **"Die with me."**_

 _It's mama's voice, but the doll's mouth moves. Its horrible stitched mouth tears itself open and speaks with mama's sweet voice. I want to turn, I want to run, but my body is frozen and my feet are stuck to the floor. I try to scream, but my mouth won't open._

 _ **"Please, Asuka. Die with me."**_

 _The doll opens its mouth again, and this time there are teeth. Huge teeth, blades the size of my body. The doll's face stretches out, turning into a monster as long as an aircraft carrier - a horrible amalgamation of sackcloth and angel flesh. I'm not in the mental ward anymore, I'm underwater. I'm sitting in Moloch's entry plug, still frozen, still silent._

 _The monster lunges forward._

 _"_ **D** _I_ **E** _W_ **I** _T_ **H** _M_ **E** _."_

 _The entry plug cracks. Water swirls in, the warm, vitalizing, almost sweet orange of the LCL leaking away into clear fountains of hellish cold salt. Whatever force kept me pinned is lifted, and I can move, I can speak, but I'm trapped in the entry plug and when I open my mouth to scream my lungs fill with seawater -_

 **X-X-X**

Asuka's eyes snapped open.

She immediately tried to bolt upright and cough at the same time, which - combined with the reflexive curl around the stabbing pain in her gut and shoulder - resulted in what probably looked like a spirited attempt to jackknife right off the bed. She ended up lying on her side with her arms wrapped around her torso, shuddering and coughing.

 _Fuck, fuck, fuck. They must not have pumped my lungs right after I passed out._ But the coughing fits brought up no LCL, and when she finally looked up, all she could see was blurry, smeared outlines around vague shapes.

Her eyes stung slightly.

 _No! Don't you dare! You're stronger than that, soldier!  
_  
Asuka bit down on the inside of her lip, almost drawing blood. The pain brought back a sense of focus, and her breathing finally slowed.

Pushing herself back into some semblance of lying normally dragged a ragged groan out of her as she put pressure on her nerve-shocked shoulder, but no fresh tears fell. She angrily wiped the remaining stragglers away with the hospital blanket, erasing all evidence that she had ever cried.

 _Except for the puffy eyes, I guess, but that'll pass eventually. I'll be fine as long as no one comes by in the next few minutes. Soldiers don't cry._

As if on cue, the door opened. Asuka barely held in a shriek, rolling to face the other direction and doing her best to feign sleep.

Not like this! I can't let anyone see me like -

 _"Ahh, you're awake!"_ Came a bright voice, speaking English. _"Sleep well? You've been out more than a day."_

Asuka didn't respond, and Mari - for it could be no-one else - seemed to hesitate.

 _"Princess?"_ The other pilot switched to German, and a set of soft footfalls approached the bed. _"Hey, I saw you moving. Everything alright?"_

An irritated response started forming on Asuka's tongue, but she bit it back, holding out a shred of hope that Mari might go away and leave her alone.

The soft creaking of springs and shift in the mattress beside her crushed that hope, however.

 _"Come on, lil' sis. It's just me here."_ Asuka couldn't suppress a twitch as she felt a hand gently stroking her hair. _"Not feeling too well? I know you get cagey when you're stressed."_

Asuka gritted her teeth. She'd be damned if she capitulated now, no matter how well Mari knew her buttons.

The doorknob rattled again, and Asuka felt the same stab of panic. She forced herself to lie still.

"Oh, _now_ you're in here." It was Maya's voice. "Miss Illustrious, I'm afraid I'll have to -"

"Shh!" Maya, surprisingly, fell silent immediately. "She's sleeping," Mari said, her voice as soft as she could manage when speaking Japanese.

There was a beat of silence before Maya spoke again, and this time it was much more quietly. "I'll come back later." The door clicked shut once more.

 _"Why did you do that?"_ Asuka growled, before cringing as she realized her mistake.

 _"If you didn't want to talk to me, I can hardly imagine you want to talk to Maya."  
_  
Asuka took a minute to process Mari's response. Not only had Mari not called her out for sulking, she'd acted out of consideration for Asuka's well-being - and she was sticking to German, too.

The lilting tone that Mari's londinian accent lent to her spoken German had always come across as endearingly provincial to Asuka. Because of this, it wasn't uncommon for Mari to stubbornly speak only in English or Japanese, even if Asuka was answering her in German. The fact that she was speaking German now only supported the theory that she was genuinely worrying.

"… well, you weren't wrong." Asuka's tone was grudging, but she could already feel the knotted tension in her shoulders starting to recede.

 _"What can I say?"_ Mari chuckled. _"I may not be a blood relative, but I'm still your sister. I know you."  
_  
Asuka didn't respond. Moments like these were few and far between in her life; ever since a young age, Mari had been the only figure in her life that she could really think of as family. Letting down her veneer of unbreakability wasn't something that came naturally to her, and she was often left unsure how to respond.

 _"Now, are you gonna make me lie down or are you gonna sit up so I can hug you properly?"_

Asuka rolled over so that she was no longer facing away, but when she braced her hands under herself, she encountered a problem.

"Asuka?"

 _"Can't get up,"_ she hissed back. _"Shoulder."_

Mari was behind her in a flash, lifting her with strong arms - one somewhat weaker than Asuka remembered, but with two good arms between them they made do - and pulling her up to lean against her. _"This okay?"_

 _No,_ Asuka wanted to respond. There were few things she hated more than relying on someone. But with nerve shock robbing her the use of an arm, a leg and a large segment of her core muscles, she didn't have much choice.

 _And if I have to lean on someone, better her than anyone else._

It took her a moment to realize that, although the arms around her were strong as ever, Mari's breathing seemed slightly unsteady.

 _"Hey, you okay, four eyes?"_

Mari didn't respond immediately, and when she did her voice sounded like she was alarmingly close to her own tears. _"I thought I'd lost you,"_ she managed. _"I… when I saw Gaghiel dive…"_

 _"Hey, none of that, four eyes."_ In truth, Asuka was afraid that if Mari started crying it'd set her off again in kind. _"We made it. Bloodied, yeah, but we're alive and the angel's dead. Don't beat yourself up over it."_

 _"Yeah."_ Mari took a deep breath, composing herself. _"Sorry. I just… you're all I have left, Asuka."_

 _"I ain't going anywhere, Mari."_ Asuka let her head fall back, knocking against Mari's shoulder. _"I'm the ace pilot, right? No way would I fall before you do."_

 _"Heh."_ Mari's chuckle was dry. _"You're good, princess, but not invincible. If you do die, I'll never forgive you, or myself."_

Asuka didn't reply immediately, instead opting to burrow slightly deeper into Mari's warm embrace.

 _"What day is it?"_ She finally said, her voice soft.

 _"Scheisse, haven't been paying attention."_ Mari tilted her head. _"Let's see… I pulled you up in the early morning after the battle, and you've been asleep about thirty hours, give or take. Midday Thursday, then?"_

 _"Could be worse, I guess."_ Asuka shifted uncomfortably. _"Fuck, I hope this heals quickly. This level of nerve shock is uncharted territory."_

 _"You're telling me. I only just got a bit of motion back in the arm this morning."_ She shifted the offending limb slightly, and Asuka realized it was the one that had seemed weaker than usual earlier. _"The fourth angel fucked Baal up pretty bad. They're gonna need to rebuild that arm prosthesis from the ground up."_

Asuka chuckled at the admission. _"I'd wondered about that, when I saw you show up with a missing arm."_ There was a wry tone in her voice. _"And Gaghiel chewed Moloch's leg off. I guess we match now."_

 _"Yeah, we sure do."_ Asuka wasn't looking at Mari's face, but her voice was already lighter and more jovial. _"So, I've been posted to NERV-J for the indefinite future, so you won't be getting rid of me anytime soon. Anything super interesting pop up since we last talked?"_

Asuka shrugged, to the best of her ability. _"Other than the battle with Shamshel and the fact that I recently broke eighty percent sync, I think you've got it covered."_

Mari nodded. _"Still at odds with the first child? You seemed pretty vocal about that last time I visited Tokyo-3."_

That was a line of inquiry Asuka hadn't expected at all, and for a moment she floundered. _"We… I… Ahem."_ she cleared her throat. _"We seem to have come to a mutual understanding of sorts,"_ she finally managed.

 _"Ahh, is that what they're calling it these days? 'mutual understanding'?"_

Asuka twisted her neck to fix Mari with a sharp look. _"And was zur hölle is that supposed to mean?"_

Mari was saved by the bell, however, as a soft knocking on the door drew their attention. A moment later, the door opened slightly, although no one stepped through.

"Pilot Soryu?" It was Maya's clipped tone again. "You have more visitors."

The British pilot shifted, sliding out from behind Asuka but keeping an arm around her shoulders. _"Is more people okay?"_ She asked softly.

 _"I think I'll be fine,"_ Asuka murmured back. _"Hey, get your arm off me."_

 _"Nope."_ Mari smirked impishly. "You can come in, Maya!" She said aloud.

The lieutenant pushed the door open just enough to step around it. If she was surprised to see Mari effectively cuddling the other pilot, she betrayed no sign of it. "Captain Katsuragi and Pilot Ikari are here to see you."

Mari looked to Asuka for assent; the younger pilot hesitated, but then gave an almost imperceptible nod. Maya stepped back out of the room for moment, and there were a few inaudible words spoken.

Shinji stepped in first, followed by Misato. A worried atmosphere clung to him like a miasma. When he saw Asuka awake and, relatively speaking, unharmed, he visibly sagged with relief. "You're okay," he whispered, likely more to himself than anyone else.

 _Well, yeah, except for the whole massive local paralyses thing, and the additional notches on my PTSD bed post,_ Asuka thought. She bit down on the words. "Takes more than a big fish to drag me down," she declared, keeping any trace of pain or doubt out of her voice with a decade's worth of practice.

Shinji smiled with half his mouth. "Yeah," he replied, his voice still soft. "I guess it does."

Misato, in contrast to Shinji, was in full uniform and was standing to a stiff attention. She didn't speak at first, apparently waiting for Asuka to acknowledge her.

"Captain," she said, nodding slightly in Misato's direction. The formality felt strange, spoken outside of an entry plug, but Asuka had a distinct feeling that Misato wasn't just here socially.

"Warrant Officer," the captain replied softly, nodding in kind. Right on the money. I bet this is going to suck. "I'm glad to see you pulled through. According to Doctor Akagi, the x-ray burst and EMP of the angel's death briefly disabled the entry plug systems entirely… apparently the central nervous system trauma could have easily left you in a long-term coma."

Asuka blinked, digesting the information. "Well, I'm glad I'm not comatose, too," she said at last. "Wouldn't do for you to lose your best, after all."

A distinct look of discomfort flickered over Misato's face. "Yes. Well. On that note."

 _Oh, scheisse. Here it comes._

"I… did everything I could to speak on your behalf," Misato said haltingly. "But the UN High Command demanded you be punished for deploying an Evangelion unit without prior authorization."

The words were like a physical blow to Asuka, and she felt her blood turn to ice. _UN High Command. The highest level of military authority in the world. The only direct superior to Project E and NERV. I am so, so screwed._ She felt Mari's arm tighten around her shoulders.

"They… ahem. There was talk of court-martials and… _other_ disciplinary action, all in various shades of excessive." The captain seemed to realize she had been shifting nervously, and straightened. "However, Doctor Akagi and I made some headway in talking them down. You'll be suspended from duty for seven days from the day you're released from hospital care. This incident will go on your record as overstepping authority, mitigated by circumstance. Lt. Ibuki will be reprimanded for direliction of duty, also mitigated by circumstance."

Asuka blinked, unconsciously letting her shoulders sag. "That's… all?" She managed. "I mean, not that I'm… thrilled or anything, but I… I kind of expected more."

"I said I talked them down. I didn't say it was _easy."_ Misato nodded slightly, which was probably as close as she was going to get to a formal bow. "I'll let you recover."

Somewhat stiffly, she turned and marched out of the room. Shinji turned to watch her go, a look of surprise on his face.

"I didn't realize…" he shook his head, a rare note of genuine anger creeping into his voice. "I can't believe they tried to punish you for this. While you were still unconscious, even."

Asuka smirked, the expression's usual malevolent edge in full force. "Welcome to the military, conscript," she replied. "When efficiency is everything, rules come before fairness."

"But - but that's -"

"Unfair? Yes. Yes it is."

Mari nudged Asuka sharply. "Princess, be nice to the puppy."

A childish pout crossed her face, but Asuka relented. "Hmph. Fine."

For some reason, that brought a smile to Shinji's face. "I'm glad you have Pilot Illustrious to look after you," he said at length. "It's never fun staying in the hospital, but it's even worse when no one visits you."

His words had a subtle weight to them - a reminder, to Asuka, that Shinji was even more lost and alone than she was. She had formed an easy camaraderie with Mari in her early childhood, and their sibling-like relationship had supported her in whatever ways it could after she lost her mother and fell out with her father; but Shinji had no one.

"She isn't looking after me," Asuka said, out of reflexive indignation. "She's just -"

"I totally am, princess. Shh, don't try to fight it."

Asuka opened her mouth to issue a scathing retort, but she was interrupted by the door opening once more. "Pilots Ikari, Illustrious?" Maya poked her head in. "Sorry about this, but we need you to return to Central Dogma plug pools for post combat recalibration tests."

Shinji's shoulders slumped, and Asuka felt Mari's arm tighten around her. "Of course they do," Mari muttered softly. "The Evas are more important than their pilots, after all."

"I'll be sure to come back tomorrow," Shinji said hastily. "That - that is, if they don't discharge you by then. Dr. Akagi said you might not need to stay long, unless the, um, stomach injury, causes deeper damage."

The Japanese pilot ducked out the door, and Mari slowly distangled her arm from Asuka's shoulders. _"You going to be okay without me, Asuka?"_ She asked, switching back to German.

"Yeah, yeah." Asuka smiled. "Get going, you."

 **X-X-X**

The click of the door was so faint that even someone already awake might miss it. But Asuka hadn't slept easily for a long time, and had the practiced hypervigilance of a career soldier on her side; the click might not have woken her alone, but the shift in the air as the door swung open came to more than enough.

Asuka thanked whatever fortune had dictated that she lie facing the door at this precise moment. She cracked open one of her eyes, just barely enough to see a fuzzy silhouette standing in the rectangle of light.

The indistinct look was all it took, however. There was only one person in Tokyo-3 who would wear a school uniform when visiting a hospital after hours. The faint impression of blue from the light filtering through her hair only cemented the assumption.

 _Was zur hölle? Wondergirl? What's she doing here?_

Rei didn't speak - nor did she seem inclined to move further into the room. She simply stood, silent and unmoving.

 _Fuck. I wish I could see her face; she doesn't fucking do the whole 'body language' thing. Gotta look fucking close to find any tells._

The seconds continued to tick by. Whatever Rei's purpose - in standing silently by the threshold of the hospital room - was, she seemed to have no intention of abandoning it anytime soon.

Oddly enough, Asuka didn't exactly find it _creepy_ \- at least, not as she used to. Everything about Rei strained the limits of the word 'weird', but the German girl no longer saw any reason to feel unsettled; despite their many failures of communication, Rei had never shown any sign of malevolent intent towards her. And as Asuka had slowly come to learn the tiny expressions and subtle vocal tells of the other girl, the unnerving _doll_ impression had begun to fall away.

Asuka was no longer sure exactly where she stood with regards to the first child. As someone who disliked uncertainty, it was… agitating.

Finally, Asuka decided she'd had enough. Putting as much effort as she could into looking like she'd only just awoken, she opened her eyes and pushed herself up - as well as she could, with one hand. " _Was?_ Wondergirl? What're you doing here?"

Rei jolted as if she'd been stung. She stood frozen for a second, then reached for the door handle, pulling the door shut as she stepped backwards.

The latch clicked again as the door swung closed, and Asuka was left staring bemusedly at where the light had been.

 _And yet again, she leaves me thinking… was zur hölle was_ _that_ _all about?_

 **X-X-X **

"I'm… err, I'm glad you're recovering well."

Asuka gave the other pilot a death glare, but for once Shinji didn't seem fazed by it. "Oh, don't be like that, Soryu. I've known you a little while; you couldn't _be_ any more proud of having won a battle that hard." He calmly opened his lunch. "Don't even try to deny it. I've seen you crowing about it to Horaki."

" _Verdammt,_ Shinji, it's no fun having a superiority complex when people just _give_ me praise," Asuka shot back - trying and failing to keep the smile off her face. She leaned over to punch him in the shoulder, but she was stuck using her right arm, and the blow lacked any significant bite.

"Well, I'm just glad you can still smile," Shinji replied, still unconcerned despite the weak blow. "Misato made us watch the Gaghiel footage yesterday, and… well. I think going through that would have broken me."

"Oh, this from the guy who trashed Shamshel while impaled on two plasma whips? Now I _know_ you're just buttering me up." Asuka rolled her eyes, and her voice took on a more serious tone. "It was being relieved of duty that hurt most. I bet my sync score has already dropped from lack of practice."

"But only for a week," Shinji reminded her. "Seems pretty light, for issuing orders above your station and joyriding in a war machine. Besides, aren't you back on duty tomorrow?"

"It's the _principle_ of it!" Asuka whined. "Now my service record is marked. Marked! For doing the right thing!"

Shinji just rolled his eyes. "I thought no soldier made it through their career without breaking at least a few rules." He shrugged. "Circumstances like that can't be unusual… uh, albeit on a smaller scale than angel attacks, but still."

"Hmph." Asuka crossed her arms, though she couldn't actually deny the statement. "And who told you _that?"_

"Kensuke, obviously."

"Oh, right, the total nerd." Asuka frowned, looking away.

"Well… you're not wrong," Shinji admitted. "I swear he'd read military regs for fun."

"What about you two, anyway?" Asuka groused. "You were both on deployment too. Not a bruise between you?"

Shinji actually laughed out loud. "After Shamshel, that was nothing. An ugly machine that can swing its arms is a _very_ different animal from an evil alien monster." He shook his head. "I hardly even had to do anything. You should have seen Ayanami - she had the whole operation on lockdown."

Asuka tilted her head. "Rei? Really?" _Verdammt, talk about a subject I'd rather not discuss._

"Oh yeah. The minute the robot started fighting back, she was like a machine," Shinji replied. "Also, 'Rei,' huh? Not 'First' or 'Wondergirl'?"

A faint flush crept over Asuka's cheeks, but she gritted her teeth. "I'll grudgingly admit she's earned a _little_ respect," she ground out sullenly. "I'm just surprised she took initiative. She seems like more of a quietly-take-orders kind of dolly."

"Well, she _does_ take orders well, but she doesn't get lost if she isn't told what to do." Shinji shrugged. "As a pilot, she's plenty _competent_ \- more than I am, for sure."

Asuka looked over at the subject of their discussion. True to form, the first child was staring out the window with glassy eyes and a neutral expression. She had, as usual, neglected to bring anything to eat during the lunch period.

An unpleasant memory raised the hairs on the back of Asuka's neck - the image of Rei pulling loose clothes around a rail-thin body, her skin stretched painfully tight over her bones.

"… I'm gonna go talk to her," Asuka abruptly declared. She stood up sharply, faltering slightly as her semi-responsive left ankle wobbled under her weight.

"Wh- really? I thought you _hated_ Ayanami -"

"Don't be stupid. I may not _like_ Rei, but I'd never hate a member of my own team." Asuka was aware that she was blatantly contradicting things she had said earlier, but she ignored it as she pressed forward.

 _I've been avoiding her for the last six days, but I bet she won't even care. I don't think Rei even understands what social awkwardness is. I guess it has its upsides._

She'd had to bring a crutch to school on her first day back, but now - six days later - She only showed a slight limp to her walk. It had been terrifying at first, displaying any kind of weakness in front of her classmates, but a few retellings of the story behind the injuries had firmly established an awe-like respect for her endurance. With a reputation like that, she had no problem with proudly displaying her war wounds.

 _After all, what kind of veteran has no scars?_

She came to a halt in front of Rei's desk. The smaller pilot did not look away from the window, or indeed acknowledge Asuka's presence at all.

"Hey, First."

Rei's mouth opened slightly, as if preparing to speak, but she said nothing. She blinked, so slowly that she seemed almost on the verge of falling asleep, and turned her head to face the german pilot.

Asuka frowned as she took in Rei's appearance. Rei was anything but animated at the best of times, but she always at least seemed _composed_ \- indeed, her aura of serenity was more constant than Asuka would have thought possible for a human. Now, however, she looked rather different.

 _Her hair's dirty, and I haven't seen that since I saw her in the hospital._ Asuka's eyes scanned the other girl critically, easily picking out the unusual flaws. Minute creases in her uniform, fractionally different lengths to the ribbon tails, the bottom button on her shirt not quite fastened -

 _Wow, Asuka, you've become a real expert on R- on Wondergirl, haven't you?_ Asuka clenched her teeth as she realized what she was doing. _Sniping little details like that - and on anyone else they'd mean nothing. You really know how she ticks, huh?_

"… Pilot Soryu," Rei murmured. It was barely even an acknowledgement.

A vague uneasiness made itself known in the pit of Asuka's stomach. Rei usually had unnerving focus, once you got her attention; today, it was as if she wasn't even _there._ Her scrutinizing gaze was replaced with a dazed stare, and the schooled neutrality of her expression was now no more than slack-faced emptiness.

 _Laying it on a little thick, Asuka! Would anyone else be able to see the difference in expression between neutral and spacey?_

She'd meant to prod Rei about the Jet Alone mission, but suddenly battlefield performance was the furthest thing from her mind. "Are you… alright?"

A pause, just a second longer than it should have been. "I am uninjured."

Asuka frowned, grabbing a nearby chair and sitting down across from Rei. "I didn't ask if you were injured, I asked if you were _alright._ You seem… I dunno… kinda off your game."

Rei stared back at Asuka. _Something's off about her eyes, but I can't quite tell…_

"All my required functions are within acceptable parameters," Rei murmured back. _Well, I can't say that was actually unexpected. Robotic responses are how she rolls._

Rei didn't look robotic, however. She looked like a _corpse._

"Required functions? First…" Asuka almost choked on the word, but finally managed. " _Rei._ We're not on duty. No one's requiring anything."

The other pilot blinked, in the same lazy half-stunned manner as before. Asuka waited patiently for a response.

After about forty-five seconds of a blank, silent stare, she concluded that Rei had either decided to remain silent or had forgotten the question. She gritted her teeth, trying not to let her frustration boil over.

 _Clearly, I'm not going to get anything out of her by the direct approach._

"What're those bracelets?" She said abruptly - and Rei blinked, somewhat faster than before.

"Bracelets?" She repeated.

Asuka cocked an eyebrow, pointing to Rei's wrist. "What, you got some other weird name for those?"

"No." Rei seemed tired. "Those are medical alerts, not jewelry."

"Medical alerts? For what?"

"Severe allergies to shellfish and beta-lactam antibiotics."

Asuka was taken off guard. "Allergies? Really."

Rei stared back at her blankly. Asuka searched her face for the tiny tells of an unimpressed expression, but found none - the japanese pilot truly seemed entirely apathetic in every way.

 _Usually I can at least make her annoyed, if nothing else!_

"I can't fucking figure you out," Asuka said, finally breaking the silence. "Every time I'm ready to write you off as a blank robot doll, you go and do something frustratingly… _normal_. Are you _really_ a person, or just faking it?"

That, finally, got a response: Rei's eyes widened slightly, and her mouth opened as if she was preparing to speak.

Then there was another tiny flicker of expression, so quick that even Asuka almost missed it.

 _Was that… fear?_

Rei shut down as quickly as she had opened up, her face stilling and returning to the blank nothingness of before. Her mouth closed without speaking.

 _I've seen her uncertain, but never once have I seen her actually afraid. What the fuck's going on with her?_

Asuka opened her mouth to pry further. Before she could speak, however, a shrill ringing filled the classroom. Lunch period was over.

Rei's attention slid away from the other pilot, and she turned her head to stare out the window once more.

"Sory- er, I mean, Asuka?" It was Hikari's voice. "I'm going to have to ask you to return to your seat…"

 _Well, at least she remembered that I don't like the last name thing,_ Asuka grumbled to herself. She stood up, glancing at Rei a final time.

 _I'll figure you out eventually, First. You mark my words._

 **X-X-X**


	11. The Weight of Authority

**X-X-X**

 _ **Chapter 11**_

 **X-X-X**

Rural areas of all nations had been hit particularly hard by second impact. Fewer people died outright, simply due to lower population density, but they were certainly not spared their share of horrors: tracts of lowlands turned to shallow seas, people struck dead or dissolved alone in remote homes, crops and machinery left rotting in fields, roads and bridges disintegrating from lack of maintenance and survivors left stranded in remote areas while relief efforts dragged their feet. Rebuilding had been slow and agonizing in urban zones; the majority of the countryside was simply left to grow wild until it could be recolonized.

"Mis- _aaaaa_ -to…" Asuka whined childishly. "Why are we out here in the middle of nowhere, again? I had _plans._ It's the _weekend."_

Misato smiled, her expression cryptic. "You'll see."

"You said that the last three times!" Asuka snapped. "Why can't you give us a straight answer?!"

" _Asuka. What have I told you about that insubordinate attitude?"_

" _Shut it, Four Eyes."_ Asuka's accent lent a harsh germanic twang to her english, a far cry from Mari's londinian lilt. " _What are they gonna do to me, anyway?"_

"With four active pilots on the force, it wouldn't be too hard to take you off duty for basically as long as I want," Misato murmured back.

Asuka almost gave herself whiplash with how fast her head spun to gape at Misato. "Wha- y- you can-" she sputtered, then deflated. " _Scheisse._ How do I always forget that?!"

"I still don't make a habit of speaking English myself," Misato replied, smirking, "as my accent is still indescribably horrible. But yes, I can _still_ understand the majority of you and Mari's 'clandestine' discussions."

Asuka wilted. "How am I supposed to go behind your back now?" She whined. "You know every language that I do!"

Shinji, who had been quiet until now, spoke up. "I only speak japanese and I haven't had a problem yet," he commented, his voice neutral.

"Yeah, but I bet you've never so much as stepped on grass when you weren't supposed to."

The other pilot pursed his lips. "You can't prove anything," he dodged.

"Ah-HA! You totally haven't, have you!"

"I - I can neither confirm nor deny a history of grass trespass." Shinji folded his arms, doing his best to look haughty. "Besides, I can totally break rules."

Misato frowned. "That's not something to be _proud_ of," she muttered, but no one paid attention.

"Citation needed," Asuka said, folding her arms in kind. "I don't believe it."

"Shamshel."

Asuka blinked, glared, then deflated. " _Scheisse,"_ she grumbled. "Can't argue with that."

"We have arrived."

Logic told Asuka that the voice should have been inaudible over the sound of the car. The fact remained, however, that everyone present heard it clearly. It was like a superpower - all ambient noise simply seemed to die away before the serenity of the neutral tone.

Or, perhaps Asuka was just over-analyzing. Despite being a quiet person, it was an established fact that Rei could make her voice carry.

The car stopped. "Where are we?" Mari asked, but Rei opened the door and stepped out without saying anything more.

The other pilots followed suit, with Misato being the last out of the car. Asuka blinked and craned her neck back as she took in the four towering structures that stood near the parking lot, beside a much smaller structure that was clearly a control tower.

"After establishing that AT tech is too poorly understood to reasonably simulate on a macroscopic scale, Dr. Akagi commissioned the construction of a live evangelion testing range." Misato smiled, a touch of smugness in her voice. "It's been a couple of years, but the range is finally ready. Today will be its first live test."

Mari blinked, balking at the last statement. "Wh- wait, what? Baal and Moloch aren't combat-ready yet! And I thought Maya hadn't cleared me for uplinking with this nerve-shocked arm yet -"

"This isn't a _combat_ test, Mari. We're just powering up the AT field augments and getting some readings," Misato sighed. "And your sync rates will be manually capped below the shock threshold, so you're fine."

Asuka, meanwhile, was still gaping in wonder.

The range was nothing - a drop in the bucket of NERV's budget, or even of NERV-J's budget. The cage towers and a control tower would have been easy to set up. But to Asuka - who was used to training in simulations, and actually _piloting_ only when on deployment - it was a dream come true.

 _Live training? Live fire tests? Gott im himmel, have I died and gone to heaven?_

"Warrant Officer Soryu."

The german pilot reflexively snapped to attention, refocusing on the captain. "Ma'am, yes ma'am."

"Step forward, please."

A surge of anxiety gripped Asuka, but she managed to comply, dully dragging her feet forward.

 _Misato only uses our ranks when she's really serious. What did I do?... What didn't I do? Scheisse, I must have fucked up really bad._

Everyone else's eyes were upon her - no, that wasn't quite true. Mari, Shinji, and Misato's eyes were on her. Rei was looking vaguely in her direction, but the glassy straight-ahead state reminded her more of a robot that had been turned off with its eyes still open.

 _Of course she isn't paying attention. Well, maybe that's for the best. If I'm about to be ejected from project E, I don't want_ _her_ _of all people savoring the memory -_

"In recognition of your performance, initiative, and bravery on the field of battle, it is my honor to promote you to the rank of Second Lieutenant, effective immediately."

Asuka's train of thought didn't so much grind to a halt as it jumped the tracks, derailed completely and plunged into a canyon while on fire. "Wh- what?" She stuttered. "I mean - for real?"

"Of course." Misato's expression was one of schooled neutrality. "You are also, effective immediately, the squad leader of the pilot corps."

"But…" Asuka frowned. "Wait. If that was 'initiative and courage'... why was I suspended from duty?"

"Overstepping authority. You commandeered a warmachine that costs more than small country," Misato said flatly. "I managed to reduce it to a token punishment, but you were an NCO. I _couldn't_ let you just walk. Besides, that's how command works - sometimes doing the right thing means accepting you're going to get punished for it."

Asuka looked away, hiding the moment of glee at Misato's use of the past tense. "Then… thank you, ma'am," she managed, and for once she actually meant it. "I won't let you down."

"Alright, pilots." Misato's voice switched back to captain mode. "There are changing rooms in the control tower. Suit up and head to your respective Eva's cage tower. The control room will radio further instructions once you're all in entry plugs. Mari, report to Maya for a pre-test scan of that arm."

There was a chorus of "yes ma'am"s, and the pilots formed a column as they headed for the control tower.

"Well, _that's_ done," Misato murmured to herself. "And I've just made either the best or worst decision of my career."

 **X-X-X**

"Ugh."

Ritsuko leaned back, rubbing her eyes. The eternal just-slightly-too-dim fluorescent lighting of the artificial evolution laboratory was, very slightly, less uncomfortable than the light of her computer screen.

A soft beep indicated that the equipment crane in the workshop ceiling had finished its task. She glanced at the video feed, nodded tiredly, and dismissed the notification.

Stretching her neck, she looked at the analog clock she kept on her workshop wall - one of her few marks of ownership, as a sterile catacomb in the deep vaults of NERV hardly fostered any personalization.

The clock read _4:45._ Ritsuko blinked. _Is that PM or AM? Wait… it can't be PM, surely, that'd mean I've been down here for over twenty hours. That's not possible… right?_

She leaned forward again, scanning the computer screen. To her relief, the computer clock read _AM_ \- she had only been working for nine hours, give or take.

 _And getting nowhere the whole time._

She opened a new document, composing a report to the Commander.

 _The Subject has_

She deleted the words almost as fast as she had typed them. _No, no, no. Fuck. He won't like that. She - no, it - it's just hardware._

 _The most recent iteration of the dummy plug hardware has run into secondary problems._

Safe enough.

 _The current system (Jacob's Ladder 1.2.0) appears incapable of accessing the bypass buffer as long as a pilot is detected. The physical presence closes the link circuit, and the primary link cannot be overridden._

 _The Rei backup has been moved to an obsolete system (Rapture 2.8.10) for further experimentation. Hopefully, the hard line will allow a more direct substitution of the dummy data due to a greater control over the linking circuit._

Ritsuko pushed her chair back and stood up, leaving the document open on her computer screen.

The clandestine workshop felt a little smaller now, with a scrapped entry plug against the back wall and another, freshly painted one moved into the center of the room. The new entry plug had subtly different external connectors, and a larger harness of wires connected it to NERV's central nervous system of computers. It also had the old top-entry hatch system, and Ritsuko had modified it to have clear plexiglass windows in the sides.

The centerpiece of the new design - _Kyū,_ as Ritsuko had come to think of her - was seated serenely in the pilot seat. The auto-uplink hardware was already screwing the connective cables into her nerve taps.

Ritsuko pulled her phone - really more a compact tablet - out of her lab coat pocket, tapping a few controls on the screen. There was a soft hum, and the light in the entry plug turned on as its internal systems activated.

"Well, here goes nothing," the doctor muttered, and tapped the final sequence.

The initialization went smoothly, and the plug's activation cycles were as flawless as would be expected from an older model with a great deal of refinement in its design. Gritting her teeth, she tapped out another sequence of commands.

 _Backup buffer online. Preparing to spoof the Rapture mindjack. Continue? Y/N_

Rolling her eyes, Ritsuko gave the command to proceed.

This was the stage where the process _usually_ failed - a few seconds into running the spoof, it would crash out with a cryptic ' _buffer upload failed at block 390-4TM4N,'_ and the link circuit would immediately suffer an unspecified fatal error and shut down.

 _Spoof running…_

Ritsuko narrowed her eyes. She glanced over at the data feed screen attached to the plug itself, which currently read _Synchronicity: 0.0% - pilot unconscious or incapacitated._ Since it was a reflection of the actual data feed theoretically accessible to the control room, it was the most reliable picture of the plug's status.

 _Spoof running…_

The blonde doctor gave in to anxiety, digging a cigarette out of her pocket and lighting it with a hastily produced lighter.

 _Spoofed data accepted! Link circuit connected to backup buffer. No anomalies detected._

Ritsuko looked over at the data panel. Sure enough, it read _Synchronicity: 29.9%_ , about normal for Rei.

"Alright," she murmured. "Let's see if the dummy system lets us force it higher…"

She tapped out another command.

 _Synchronicity: 45.1%_

 _Synchronicity: 58.2%_

 _Synchronicity: 81.7%_

A vicious grin crept across her face, and she hissed triumphantly as she exhaled a cloud of smoke. The synchronization rate rapidly eclipsed a hundred percent, levelling off at 110.0% just as she had set it.

Then, the data panel beeped sharply, whistling a hazard alarm.

 _WARNING - SYNCHRONICITY ABOVE 99.5% MAY CAUSE UNPREDICTABLE RESULTS. PILOT SAFETY MAY BE COMPROMISED._ Ritsuko frowned, looking over at the plug's plexiglass window.

Her jaw dropped at the sight. The cigarette fell to the concrete floor, forgotten.

Kyū was convulsing violently, thrashing as much as she physically _could_ given the nerve taps screwed tightly into her neck and spine. She looked for all the world like she was suffering a violent seizure.

Ritsuko dropped the tablet, striding over to the plug feed panel as fast as she could. The control keys under the screen were crude and limited, but Ritsuko was a firm believer in a basic principle of mad science: _never build anything without a manually activated hard shutdown switch._

She punched the first button, and the link circuit collapsed instantly. The light in the dummy plug switched from orange - that is, white filtered through orange - to a soft red.

Finally, she let herself look into the plexiglass window. An icy stab of trepidation ran through her at the sight.

Kyū had slumped against the seat, breathing heavily. That wasn't out of the ordinary - Kyū _did_ breathe, albeit usually a little slower than a human due to her eternally oxygen-rich environment.

But her _eyes_ were open.

Ritsuko bit her lip. As if sensing her gaze, Kyū shifted slightly, and her eyes slowly tracked downwards and to the side until they met Ritsuko's

Kyū's mouth opened slightly, as if she was trying to speak, although she still bore no more than a dazed expression. Her slack hand twitched, its knuckles just barely bumping against the bottom of the window -

Then her eyes slid shut, and she was a limp body floating in LCL once more.

Ritsuko blinked a few times, then finally pulled out another cigarette. She retrieved her tablet from where it had fallen, and uploaded its spoofing data - but _not_ the raw results data from the dummy plug itself - to her computer. Her fingers typed on reflex as she walked back to her computer workstation.

By the time she sat down, she had a data set from the entry plug that would have looked extremely authentic to anyone who hadn't been told what to look for. She uploaded that too, then switched to the open report.

 _Preliminary testing of the Rapture 2.8.10 Dummy Plug shows promise; spoofing the circuit from the backup buffer seems to work much better when tapping a hardware line. More testing will be necessary to refine this process, as the spoof is not equivalent to an automated input capable of real-time piloting control._

 _The preliminary test forced synchronicity to 110.0%, demonstrating the fine link control available to the system._

She paused, her hands hovering over the keyboard.

 _No,_ she concluded at length. _No. At best he'd tell me to ignore her pain, at worst he'd execute her. I can't. I won't be that vile a monster._

She typed out the final line.

 _No irregularities were detected._

 _\- Dr. Akagi Ritsuko_

 **X-X-X**

Asuka constantly had to check herself - it wouldn't do for an officer to be caught grinning like an idiot on squad comm with video feed online. Still, it was hard for her to contain her glee.

She caught herself looking down again, and forced her eyes forward. _It's still there, Asuka, it's still there. You've only checked like thirty times._

Even without looking at it, her imagination filled in the image of the gold bar on the upper arm of her plugsuit. She knew it was really no more than an accessory, but she couldn't stop herself imagining the weight of rank it bore.

 _Second Lieutenant Langley-Soryu._

It certainly had its own sort of gravitas to it…

" _Alright, pilots, the sensor arrays are almost ready."_ It was Maya's voice - Dr. Akagi was tied up with some clandestine project back at NERV and hadn't been able to personally oversee the test. " _Prepare to project your AT fields."_

Asuka allowed herself a smile as she switched to output level one. The cable heat meter ticked upward, but stayed below the safe limit.

 _Man, it sure is nice being on cables. Too bad that's not practical for most actual deployments… I wonder, just how much does NERV spend on enriched uranium fuel? That scheisse can't be cheap._

" _Alright, we'll start with simple flat plane shields at fifty percent augmentation. Mark."_

Projecting an AT field was perhaps the strangest thing about being synchronized with an Evangelion. Even if for some strange reason the pilot preferred to use the analog controls to maneuver and operate internal systems instead of the mental uplink, there _was_ no analog control for the AT field. It felt worlds different from the other aspects of the link circuit; it was purely autonomic and the AT field would fail to manifest if you thought about it too hard. Asuka had never been able to describe how it felt - it was a quintessential case of describing a sunset to someone blind from birth.

An orange shimmer split the air before her, and Asuka couldn't hold back the grin.

 _The power of gods!_

The hundreds of antennas on the ground lit up in patterns around each Eva's AT shield. Asuka looked to her left - the sensors around Unit 01's seemed particularly bright.

" _Alright, I'm getting a good reading from all of you."_ The sensors shut off, and four small rings of light activated in the middle of the array. " _I want you each to step into the highlighted zones for more subtle examinations and stress-tests."_

Asuka felt the slight weakness in the bone graft in her left leg, but at a mere walk it was nothing serious. She stepped forward confidently.

 _I wonder if I can access Maya's data feed from in here, now that I'm officially the squad leader._ Asuka frowned to herself, then shook her head. _Better not try right now. If that's not something I'm supposed to do, I hardly want to kick off this command with a breach of trust._

She maneuvered Unit 02 into place between Units 00 and 01, wondering briefly why they weren't arranged in numeric order. _I suppose none of our Evas quite match - there's a prototype, a test model, a production model and a refurbished salvage piece. Maybe they wanted to set up the range to accommodate our units' differences._

" _Please project AT skin shields. Fifty percent augmentation, as before."_

Asuka folded the energy around herself, feeling the field shape into a barrier hundreds of times stronger than the evangelions' hyperdiamond armor. Even with her high synchronicity, she could feel the feedback strain; a humanoid form was a complex shape for the unearthly forces to maintain.

" _Asherah, I'm getting some instability in your AT field morphology… is everything alright?"_

Asuka's attention was immediately on the comms. It was a tricky mental challenge to listen closely while also sustaining a complex AT field, but she managed.

" _Yes."_

 _Well maybe if your sync was over forty percent, it'd be easier,_ Asuka thought sourly. _Ugh, focus. Breaking down teammates isn't what a good leader does._

" _Alright, pilots, please increase your AT output to seventy-five percent."_

Asuka strained her focus, pushing Unit 02's output harder. The shield around her hardened, and the shimmer intensified to a full-on glow.

A new comm window blipped into existence on her HUD. It read _CONTROL ROOM - private channel._ Asuka frowned, silencing her open squad comm.

" _Pilot Ayanami is flagging. I know she can do better - her AT output and control were fine in the battle with Shamshel."_ Maya wore a concerned frown. " _Her sync is down a bit too, but not enough to warrant this - and you're all capped at fifty percent anyway. Is she okay?"_

Asuka bristled before she could stop herself. "What makes you think I'm in charge of her well-being?"

"… _the fact that you_ _are_ _in charge of her well-being,_ _squad leader._ "

The german pilot winced. "Yeah, that was… sorry." She shook her head. "I shouldn't have."

" _No, you shouldn't have. But hey, at least you recognize when you fuck up now, so that's something."_ Asuka briefly wondered if Maya had been spending time with Mari, since she seemed to be just as good at the patronizing older sister act. " _Now, back to my original question. Have you noticed anything unusual with her recently?"_

Asuka tilted her head. "Yeah, actually," she replied. "She seemed pretty badly distracted yesterday in school. Almost like she wasn't all there. No idea what it means, though."

 _Actually, I could guess. Her condition didn't seem too dissimilar to what someone acts like when they're near-terminally sedated. And I know she takes antipsychotics and sedatives, so it isn't a stretch to assume her dose was increased… but I still can't figure out why she's medicated at all, and I doubt Maya is in the know._

" _Right… well, keep an eye on her. The poor thing's always in the commander's eye; it won't go well for her if she suddenly flags."_ Maya hesitated, then decided to continue. " _You might need to help her through some of these tests."_

Asuka struggled to maintain a straight face as she gritted her teeth. "I'll do my best," she said curtly. "Her low sync score will still limit her performance."

" _I'll settle for getting her back to where she was."_ The private comm clicked off, and then Maya appeared on the squad comm channel. " _Alright, pilots. Proceed one kilometer westward. You'll find armaments and a target range - we're going to test the AT penetration technique from the battle with the fifth angel."_

That particular move was one Asuka was eager to study - it had been something of a shot from the hip, borne of idle speculation on how to effectively engage with the pallet rifles against a shielded foe. Apparently both Shinji and Rei had independently experienced the same inspiration, and such an effective battlefield test definitely warranted further investigation.

" _Yo, princess. What's she talking about? I never heard of that."_

Blinking away memories of the battlefield, Asuka focused back on the squad comm. "We… during the battle with Shamshel, we improvised AT-piercing flechettes by… um, tracing them as we fired through our own AT fields," she replied, stumbling slightly over the vague terminology. "I _think_ it worked by stretching a narrow spike just ahead of the flechette. I don't know. It's one of the _really_ fuzzy 'feel-don't-think' moves."

" _Huh, neat!"_ Mari grinned. " _I guess that's why they made you squad leader and not me."_

Asuka blushed slightly, looking away from the comm camera. "Shinji and Rei came up with the same thing," she grumbled. "That was creativity from survival, not leadership."

" _Doesn't mean it wasn't clever."_ Mari shrugged. " _But I ended up wrestling number four in a clusterfuck of underground tunnels with a goddamn lance, so maybe circumstance does play into it a bit."_

Shinji's optimistic expression popped up on the screen. " _Well at least you'll get to learn now, miss Illustrious!"_

" _I sure will, puppy. I sure will."_

There were four immense pallet rifles mounted on scaffolds on the first ridge. The firing range appeared to consist of a wide, shallow valley; on the far ridge, four vaguely humanoid target figures had been welded and bolted together out of what looked like scrap girders.

" _You have sensors on the far ridge?"_ Shinji wondered, as the pilots undocked and prepared their rifles.

" _And in the dummies, yeah. Half this entire training range does. We want as much data as can possibly be had on AT field use."_

" _But won't the sensors get destroyed, if they're actually inside the dummies?"_

" _Ahh, but you underestimate the size of NERV's budget."_ Maya looked unusually smug. " _Especially when it comes to AT research. We can wreck almost anything we want."_

"Now that's the kind of thing I like to hear," Asuka murmured, half to herself. "Let's do this."

The Evangelion APFSDS Gauss 'Pallet' Rifle had been updated since the battle with Shamshel. Its grip was sleeker - better designed to mold with an Eva's hand - and the barrel and stock were shaped a little differently. It was heavier, too.

 _More high strength steel, less polymer. They probably felt a need to toughen them after the workout we put them through against the seraphs._

" _Alright, pilots. Take aim, please. I'm powering up the sensor grid now."_

Asuka lifted the rifle to her shoulder, iron-sighting with her lower right eye. Though its profile was slightly different, the weapon was familiar; she'd used the same in innumerable training simulations since a young age, and more recently in a real life or death battle.

Her teeth clenched. She blinked, and for a second, she was no longer on the training range - the pallet rifle was the older model, the cable heat meter was replaced by the blinking reactor fuel data, and instead of a target dummy in her ironsights there was a writhing alien monstrosity.

 _Breathe, Asuka._

She was on the training range again. It was just a test, and she was safe.

 _Battles will come, but today, it is just a test._

" _Fire when ready, pilots."_

Asuka squeezed the trigger. The rifle barked and jumped in her hands, but her grip held firm; it spat a five-round burst of flechettes and every one of them managed to strike her target. Sparks flew from the steel beams as the massive projectiles tore them like paper.

" _Alright, that's a good control sample. Now, I want you to try the AT penetration threading with your augments at twenty-five percent."_

Asuka fired up her AT field again, and a second later, felt the faint sensation of her field intersecting with those of the other pilots. She closed her eyes, focusing on the feeling.

It was a strange thing, but the AT fields actually provided some degree of physical feedback - a pilot could, albeit dimly, feel out surfaces and shapes purely by projecting their focus. Asuka let the energy wrap around her hands and weapon, flowing like an invisible current down the barrel to cover the muzzle.

" _Fire when ready."_

Another cacophony of earsplitting booms ripped through the air as four Gauss guns launched a volley of hypersonic projectiles at their targets. Shimmering orange tracer rays hovered in the air for a second or two before dissipating.

" _Rei? I'm getting a very weak reading from your target. Are Asherah's augments intact?"_

Asuka frowned at the question. Maya had more data before her than Asuka did, and Asuka could have told her that Unit 00 was in perfect condition - any pilot could asses the general damage level to any other pilot's Eva, if they were on the same deployment.

" _Asherah is not damaged, Lieutenant Ibuki."_ Rei's voice was as flat as ever.

Maya seemed to have decided to go for the direct approach this time. " _What's interfering with your AT field use, then?"_

There was a brief pause. Then - " _I do not know."_

 _That smells like bullshit. Rei's got her secrets - her weird relationship with the commander, her weird hair and eyes, the weird tattoo on her back - she may act the part of the perfect little soldier, but she sure as scheisse knows how lie._

Thinking quickly, Asuka opened a private channel. "First. What's the holdup?"

The screen initially read _Sound Only,_ but a second later, it flashed to _Officer Credentials Accepted - Overriding._

Asuka blinked in surprise as the screen resolved into a feed from Rei's entry plug - the first look inside that she'd ever gotten. Really, most of it wasn't too shocking; the interior and control array were more or less identical. The seat, however, looked like something out of a nightmare.

Several large cables ran from behind the seat into attachment points on Rei's plugsuit - attachment points that lined up perfectly with the nerve grafts that Asuka knew lay beneath the neoprene. A multitude of smaller cables plugged into the remaining plethora of A10 nodes that dotted the outdated white plugsuit. Rei herself seemed to hang limply from the apparatus, as if about to fall from her seat. Her eyes were half-lidded and almost vacant.

"Firs- Dammit. Rei?"

Rei blinked, then lifted her head. " _Yes, lieutenant?"_ She answered, her voice clipped as ever.

 _She still looks like a wreck, though. Does she even know I can see her now?_

"What's screwing with your fields? And don't lie to me. I know something's been off with you."

Rei stared back at the feed, her expression as cold and corpse-like as it had been in school. " _I have… found it hard to think, recently,"_ she replied.

 _Half truth. I guess I'll take it - I doubt she'll give me more._ "Are you so fucked up that you can't feel AT feedback?"

A pause, although perhaps not the one Asuka had hoped for - she'd expected the thinly veiled insult to elicit _some_ reaction, however small, but Rei's mask did not flicker. She seemed to be genuinely considering the question.

" _I am not."_

One corner of Asuka's mouth curled upwards. "Then, do you think you can follow a basic lead for this maneuver?"

Rei's brow twitched almost imperceptibly, and Asuka had to suppress a gleeful grin. _She_ _is_ _still in there! Yes!_

" _Only if I could feel the feedback from another Evangelion,"_ Rei managed, haltingly, her tone tinged with the smallest trace of confusion.

"Yeah, well, I've got an idea about that. And no time like the present! We're on a testing range to test things out, aren't we?"

Rei stared blankly back.

"… Don't answer that. Anyway, all I need from you is to set your augments to a specific field frequency. Can you do that?"

" _Yes."_

"Alright, cool. I'm sending you the frequency set now."

Asuka powered up her AT field, feeding the control data into the comm channel as she did so. Ripples of orange light split the air before her, and the barrier slowly expanded until it also stood between Unit 00 and the targets.

"Tune your field to the same frequency as mine and prepare to trace the rounds. Can you do that?"

" _I am unsure."_ Rei paused. " _I think so."_

"I'll trace them too. Just let me do it once, then follow my lead - you should be able to feel out what to do." Asuka shifted, poising herself. "Fire on my mark."

Unit 00 lifted the rifle.

"Mark."

Rei fired, and the flechettes struck further sparks from the target structure. Several girders began listing from the frame.

Maya's face popped back up on the squad comm. " _Why did I just pick up Moloch's AT field striking Asherah's target?"_ She asked, her voice sharp.

"I'm walking her through the round tracing," Asuka said quickly. "Gotta make sure she can keep up."

" _Ah, gotcha. Should I stand by for a second volley?"_

"Yes." Asuka clicked back over to the private comm. "Okay, First. Think you can follow this time?"

" _Yes."_

"Alright. Again. On my mark."

Once more, Unit 00 lifted the pallet rifle and iron-sighted it. This time, Asuka could feel the other Eva's AT field powering back up and resonating with her own. The orange shimmer in the air was rippling far more rapidly than before.

"Mark."

And then the world blinked.

Asuka reeled and staggered as her vision vanished into blinding orange-tinted light, and a thunderclap drowned out all other sound. For a moment, it was as if she were back on the road in Misato's car, the very first day she'd set foot in Tokyo-3 - the blast drew back a recollection of the blood-chilling terror of being just a stone's throw from a nuclear airstrike.

The visual feed readjusted quickly, however - Evangelion eyes were made of stronger stuff than human ones. Asuka forced herself to straighten her back, and banished the fear unearthed by the memory. It wouldn't do to display cowardice on squad comm.

" _Anyone want to tell me what the_ _fuck_ _just happened?"_ It was Misato's voice.

Asuka winced. "I… was trying to help Rei with the AT penetration technique," she managed. "And it didn't, uh, work out exactly as intended."

Unit 00 was the worst hit, and had nearly fallen to her knees, while Unit 02 had also staggered; Units 01 and 05, being further from the blast, had fared somewhat better. Their pilots were shaken, but not struck.

The target dummy, however, was _gone._ Not a trace of the original structure remained. A deep, wide groove of scorched earth had been cleft into the ridge where the structure had stood - beside it, Unit 02's target was on the verge of collapse from the force of the blast.

" _Hang on…"_ Maya didn't even sound shaken. " _I'm checking out the peripheral observation camera footage. It's orange, not blue, but that looks eerily similar to Sachiel's energy weapon."_

" _What? Really?"_ Misato furrowed her brow. " _Son of a bitch, it does… is that how they do that, then?"_

" _If a powerful AT field can do that to a training dummy? Yeah, I'd say that's probably it."_

At the end of the line, Unit 05 hefted her pallet rifle, lifting it and resting it on her shoulder.

" _So, like, are there other AT tests you want us to get to today? Or does this inexplicable angel energy blast take priority?"_

On the comm screen, Maya could be seen looking over her sensors with a bewildered expression. " _With data like this?"_ Maya shook her head. " _I wish I could say we can carry on the test, but building new target dummies will take quite a while. And if AT fields can do things like_ _that_ … _well, I think we need to redesign the assessment regimen anyway."_

" _Alright. You heard her, pilots."_ Misato have a jerk of her head. " _Come on back for retrieval."_

 **X-X-X**

The door of the range's tiny infirmary opened, and Mari blinked, focusing her previously scattered attention.

"… and remember, try to keep pushing. I know walking will be a little awkward, but ultimately the nerve regeneration relies on exercising those nerves."

"Yeah, yeah," Asuka huffed, limping out of the room. Just as it had been immediately after she was retrieved from the battle with Gaghiel, and as it was most mornings, her left leg was wrapped from the ankle to just under the knee in bandages. The gauze was soaked in a greasy, clear fluid, one Mari was uncomfortably familiar with.

" _She's in a mood. Watch yourself."_ Asuka's accented english was difficult to understand in the hushed whisper with which it was delivered, but Mari got the gist of it. " _She might stick you with needles!"_

"Pilot Illustrious?" Maya's clipped tone called. Mari stood up, bracing herself as she entered the infirmary.

"Time to put the goop back on?" The british pilot deadpanned as she sat down on the bed.

"If by 'goop' you mean transdermal nerve steroid gel, then yes," Maya deadpanned back. "Roll up your sleeve, please."

Mari did so, peeling the white cloth back from her less functional arm. "Sure you wouldn't prefer me to take my shirt off?"

"You're insufferable enough without any encouragement," Maya replied, still maintaining a flat tone.

Mari huffed. "Can't blame a girl for trying," she mumbled softly, holding the sleeve back. Maya seemed not to hear, and simply took hold of Mari's arm.

"Huh?" The english woman blinked. "You aren't putting the goop on?"

"The nerve steroids are still very experimental," Maya explained. "You're overdue for a response test."

"What do you mean a - eep."

Maya had grabbed Mari's bicep in a firm grip, and was busy probing the pilot's skin with her free hand. Mari blinked, too off-balance to do anything but gape wordlessly for a moment.

"Can you feel that?"

Mari blinked back to reality. _Keep it together, you dysfunctionally gay brit. This is just a medical procedure._

"Umm." Mari searched for appropriate words, knowing that Maya didn't speak english. "It's… I can feel your, er, grip. The rest though, more like… touches? I'm not getting much pressure."

"Hmm." Mercifully, Maya didn't look up, instead drawing her hand down to the crook of Mari's elbow. "How about now?"

"Y-yes. Err, I can feel that." The pilot took a deep breath. "It tickles. Your fingers are warm."

"That's good. Temperature sensation is a good sign." The lieutenant dug her thumbs into the soft tissue of Mari's wrist. "Now?"

"Uh. About the same."

Finally, Maya drew her thumb in a circle around Mari's palm. "Same? Better? Worse?"

Mari didn't respond immediately, and Maya looked up with a concerned expression - to see the pilot blushing intensely and biting the back of her wrist.

"Pilot Illustrious? Are you… is something wrong?"

"No!" Mari squeaked. "Er - I mean - no, ma'am!"

The lieutenant frowned, then narrowed her eyes. "You don't _look_ fine. And you aren't usually this cooperative."

"It's nothing! I'm just -" Mari floundered for a moment, before finally reasserting her usual smooth self. "I never expected a woman as pretty as you to get so… _handsy_ before the first date."

 _Wow, Mari, that might not have been your smartest move._

Maya dug both of her thumbs into the center of Mari's palm as hard as she could, and the hapless brit shrieked at the the sudden spike of pain.

"Well! Looks like sensation recovery is coming along nicely, hmm?" Maya was still smiling, but her look could only be described as pure evil. "Now, time for the… 'goop,' is that what you called it?"

Mari nodded dumbly as Maya got up and walked over to one of the cabinets. _Well, looks like I've incited her wrath. Prepare to get screwed, Mari, and not in the good way._

"Hmm, actually, there's an experimental nerve-shock treatment that just recently got cleared as safe for human testing. In fact, Senpai's been hounding me for data on it." Maya turned back to Mari, her expression hard. "Feel up to trying it?"

Mari blinked. "Wait, you're giving me a choice? After that?"

"I'm a medical professional, pilot Illustrious." Maya's tone was dead serious. "I'm not going to force treatment on you against your will."

Taken off-guard yet again, Mari could only stare for a moment. _Morally upstanding too? Along with cute, clever, tomboyish, educated as all hell, and cuts a fine fucking figure in that uniform?_

… _shit, I think I'm in love._

"The therapy requires deep injections near major nerves, which may be painful." Maya retrieved a frighteningly large syringe and a small bottle of orange liquid. "Still up for it?"

Mari forced down the nervousness from before, replacing it with easy bravado. "I'm a professional alien monster wrangler," she replied, grinning. "No matter how bad the injections hurt, I doubt it'll compare to what gave me that nerve shock in the first place."

"If you say so." Maya filled the syringe. "Hold out your arm, please."

Mari did so, and the lieutenant shifted the limb slightly before pricking the outside of her shoulder near what she would guess was the axillary nerve. Mari grimaced at the sensation of pressure and the lingering ache, but didn't make a sound.

"Just one more near the elbow," Maya murmured. "Hang on…"

The orange bottle on the counter drew Mari's attention, and she welcomed the distraction from the uncomfortable injection. The label was at an angle, but a significant portion was readable; after adjusting her glasses with her free hand, she could see it clearly enough.

' _Link circuit liqu-' wait, LCL? This experimental treatment involves LCL injections?_ Her brow furrowed. ' _Lilithian', whatever that means. I wish I could see the other third of the label…_

"Alright, that's that." Maya taped a cotton ball and band-aid over the injection site. "Since, unlike your… um, 'sister', you actually accepted the experimental treatment, I won't put the steroid gel on. I need controlled data, after all. Thank you, pilot Illustrious."

"No problem!" Mari flashed her best winning grin. "Happy to help."

She made for the door and stepped out - and paused, surprised.

Rei was standing outside the door, staring blankly straight ahead. As soon as Mari let go of the doorknob, the younger pilot stepped around her and entered the infirmary.

The door clicked shut behind her. Mari narrowed her eyes, intrigued.

 _Something odd seemed to be up with Rei… but everything about her is odd, anyway._

 _It might be a breach of privacy, but I gotta take any chance I'm given to check out Gendo's pet._

She did a quick visual sweep of the corridor, noting a lack of security cameras. There had been one in the infirmary room itself, and that was apparently enough security for medical equipment. Satisfied, she knelt and pressed her ear to the door.

" _... were seriously under par in the tests until pilot Soryu stepped in to help. Is everything alright?"_

Rei said something in reply, and Mari cursed silently. The blue-haired pilot was so soft-spoken that, through the door, her voice was no more than an indistinct blur of sound.

" _Are you taking your medication regularly? Dr. Akagi briefed me on your condition. Neglecting to take them regularly might cause severe -"_

Maya was cut off by Rei saying something again.

" _I know you have… unusual healthcare needs, but at least let me check you over. You were in a medically induced coma only a few weeks ago!"_

Another quiet murmur.

" _Alright, fine. If you insist, I won't force you. Can I at least take a blood sample to send to Senpai - I mean, Dr. Akagi?"_

Rei replied with something that was probably 'yes', and there was the sound of someone sitting down on the medical table.

 _So she's cagey even with close-in NERV staff. Curiouser and curiouser… I wonder if there's anyone who really knows what makes her tick, other than Gendo himself. Dr. Akagi probably does, I guess. Perhaps I should snoop her out for more information. All I can say for now is that Rei is suspiciously important to the commander, and the commander alone… and that her medical needs are kept secret. The same medical needs that apparently require a daily cocktail of powerful psychotropics, according to what Asuka told Kaji. I wonder, is she even human?_

Guessing that she'd already heard everything useful that was going to be said, Mari pulled away from the door, straightening and hurrying away. She may not have been under as much suspicion as Kaji, but it still wouldn't do for her to be caught spying.

Her head was still full of thoughts as she pushed open the facility doors and stepped into the parking lot, but the loud-mouthed red presence waiting there provided an instant and ample distraction. "Finally!" Asuka groused. "I'm more than ready to go home. Went for the needle rather than the goop, huh?"

Mari grinned, snickering slightly. "Of course. What, were you afraid of a little prick, Princess?"

"Hey! It's not the needle I'm afraid of, it's what's in it. NERV can keep their mad science away from my _body,_ thank you very much. Evangelions are one thing, but I draw the line at being subjected to medical tests - they can make someone _else_ into a Frankenstein's monster."

A brief image of Rei played back in Mari's mind. "Yeah, they sure can," she replied absently.

"Exactly. Anyway, Misato's waiting, and wonder girl won't be long - when she isn't spacing out, she moves quick. Let's get going."

 **X-X-X**


	12. The Belly of the Beast

**X-X-X**

 _ **Chapter 12**_

 **X-X-X **

Shinji Ikari was the very definition of easily overlooked. He was slightly below average height, naturally timid, and carried himself with the shy posture of a preoccupied introvert.

Easily overlooked, however, did not mean that he wasn't _there._ People tended to forget his presence, but he still saw and heard everything around him - which often included things that people might not say if they realized they had an audience.

"Hey, Ikari. It's your turn, man."

Shinji blinked out of his reverie. Realizing he was still holding an empty soda can, he stood and tossed it into a nearby garbage can, landing the throw with absolute precision.

Kensuke gave a slow clap. "Not bad, Ikari. That's a solid seven meters on an underhand throw."

Shinji shook his head as he stood up and headed over the arcade console. "Don't read too much into it. NERV requires us to get near-perfect scores in Gym class, on top of… 'extracurricular' physical training." His smile was halfhearted and wry. "It's the only class they care about our performance in."

"Man, I wish Gym was the only class _my_ dad cared about," Toji said wistfully. "I'd be a damn star child in his eyes."

 _My father wouldn't care if I won a goddamn gold medal in the Olympics. He didn't even thank me after that first battle. I'm nothing but a soldier to him._

Kensuke, meanwhile, was listening with rapt attention. "Man, Ikari," he said wistfully. "You're one lucky guy."

Shinji snorted as he stepped up to the console. "How do you figure _that,_ Aida?" He muttered back. "I didn't ask to be their soldier. Soryu still calls me 'conscript' sometimes, and she's not wrong."

"But you're a _hero!"_ Kensuke blurted out. "The rest of us can just play these damn video games and study fact sheets online, you actually get to _pilot_ military hardware - the greatest of its time, no less!"

Shinji shook his head, wincing as if he'd bit into something bitter. "Not all it's made out to be, Aida," he said, his voice low. "Endless sync tests. Rigorous training. Battle wounds that cut just as deep as the real thing and leave you questioning your sanity when you can't see them afterwards -" he cut himself off, closing his eyes. "It's hard, and painful, and gruelling. Being a pilot _sucks._ I don't think anyone except Soryu actually _likes_ it, and even she will admit it's a hefty weight on her shoulders."

"Huh? What about Ayanami, or that other hot European chick - Mari, I think her name was?"

The pilot didn't respond immediately - he was busy aiming the fake gun at animated villains on the arcade screen, scoring a streak of quick and efficient kills.

 _Center, brace, fire. Center, brace, fire. Center, brace, fire. It's no different from training, really._ Pixelated bodies dropped like flies, and suddenly Shinji felt the impression of a bitter taste in his mouth. _There's a lot less at stake here than in a real battle, though. Why would anyone want to simulate this for_ _fun?_

"Ikari? Hey, man, you okay?"

Shinji blinked, abruptly returning to himself. "I… sorry." He shook his head. "I got lost in thought for a moment there. What was the question?"

"I said, what about Ayanami or that English chick? Don't they like piloting?"

Shinji frowned, creasing his forehead in thought. "Miss Illustrious… has her own reasons for piloting, and I don't know what they might be. They could be as simple as concern for Soryu; those two are like sisters. But she might be after something completely different and I'd never know. She acts real friendly, but she's good at never actually saying a word about herself." A digital enemy got a lucky shot with an explosive weapon, and Shinji's avatar died; the young pilot passed the controller to Kensuke with a sigh. "Ayanami… I don't think Ayanami likes _anything,_ except maybe pleasing my father. As far as I can tell, she only pilots because he tells her to, and because Project E is all there is to her life."

Toji laughed at Shinji's description. "Sounds like Ayanami, all right. That girl's cold as hell. Doesn't give more than two words to anyone."

 _Except Soryu, for some reason,_ Shinji mused. _Most of their interactions end in one or both of them pissed off, and yet even that much is more interest than I've seen Ayanami show in anything except my father's orders. Not to mention the fact that Soryu keeps engaging with her, even approaching her directly from time to time, despite professing to hate her. I think there is likely more to their relationship than meets the eye._

"That's the other thing," Kensuke continued. "Not only do you get to work with top-secret mecha hardware, you also have three smoking hot babes as coworkers! And that doesn't even include _Misato_ -"

"Okay, stop - stop right there," Shinji stammered, his face red. "First, Misato is literally twice my age, so that's _incredibly_ creepy _._ Second, you said it yourself - the other three _are_ my coworkers. While I can't deny they're attractive -" his blush deepened - "any relationship would be a recipe for disaster. And anyway, I wouldn't think any of them would find me… compatible, if you will."

"What? What do you mean, compatible? You're a guy and they're girls, what else is there?"

Shinji frowned. "What if I was gay?"

Kensuke blinked at that, and the distraction spelled the death of his video game self. To his credit, he recovered quickly. " _Are_ you gay?"

"Well… no." _At least, I don't think so. I definitely still like girls. I'll… address the rest of that equation later._ "But there's no need to assume like that."

"… okay, fair. But if not, what's the problem?"

"For one thing, Miss Illustrious _is_ gay, as well as being like seven years older than me," Shinji countered. "And like I said, Rei doesn't seem to like anything. I don't think anyone can reasonably carry on a relationship with someone who acts like you aren't even _there_ half of the time."

Toji raised an eyebrow, although he didn't look away from the game console. "That leaves the red devil, right?"

Shinji blushed again, and Kensuke cackled with glee. "So you _do_ have a crush! Hard luck, man - she's pretty, but got the personality of a demon incarnate."

"Pilot Soryu is a good person when you get to know her," Shinji defended stubbornly, "and she's a good soldier, too. Better than I am. I'm proud to have her as a commanding officer."

At his last words, Toji and Kensuke both whipped their heads around to look at him - the former at the expense of his digital self's life, but he paid it no mind.

 _Shit, did I say something wrong?_

"What was that about a commanding officer?" Kensuke's look could only be described as hungry.

Shinji fought the urge to cringe at the sudden scrutiny, But stood strong. _A soldier's gotta be able to keep his cool when under fire_. "Soryu is now the squad leader of the pilot corps," Shinji said carefully. "As well as a second lieutenant. She was promoted for exemplary service in the battle with Gaghiel."

"Wow…" Kensuke had stars in his eyes. "Hey, do you think that means she has a higher security clearance than before? I bet she could find out all kinds of cool things! Hey, Ikari, do you think you could -"

" _No."_ Shinji's voice hardened. "Not a chance."

"What?" Kensuke looked absolutely crestfallen. "But -"

"After your game with the camera on our first day of school, it'll be a cold day in hell before Soryu does _anything_ on your behalf," Shinji said matter-of-factly. "But even if she would… don't pursue this, Aida. I'd thought that confiscating your camera after you were in an entry plug would teach you that NERV Black Ops take their information security very seriously."

"Information security?" Kensuke's voice was quizzical. "What do you mean?"

Shinji's expression remained serious, and Kensuke was somewhat taken aback. Shinji _never_ pressed a point - it had even led to a reputation for being somewhat spineless. But here, now, he wasn't backing down.

"NERV is a clandestine organization," he said quietly, his eyes darting from side to side. "We answer only to the UN - and through a proxy committee, no less. We're funded more than any other military force in the world except possibly the United States Army. We work with _alien superweapons._ So, what do I mean by Information Security? I mean that I like you… and I don't want to see you and your family relocated to Okinawa at gunpoint in unmarked black vans."

Kensuke blinked, too shocked to respond. Even Toji, stoic and tough as he usually was, seemed a little pale. "You… you really think they'd do that?" The taller boy finally murmured.

Shinji scowled, looking back at the idle arcade screen. "At least that," he replied. "I don't want to say they might kill to stop security breaches… but I can't for certain say that they _wouldn't,_ either."

"Damn." Kensuke shook his head, as if to clear it. "That… damn. That's rough."

"Easy enough from my point of view, actually," the pilot replied with a bitter smile. "I'm never really at risk of breaching security. After all, no one at NERV ever tells me anything."

 **X-X-X **

" _How're you holding up?"_

Mari tapped her heel on the elevator floor nervously. "About as well as I can, I guess," she murmured back.

" _That's all I can ask."_ Kaji's voice sounded apologetic, and Mari rolled her eyes, mentally counting down until - " _hell, I'm sorry I talked you into this. It should have been -"_

"Oh you knock that off," Mari interrupted sharply. "We're in this together, same as ever. And like you said, Gendo suspects you, and you're disposable - it'll be a bullet in the back for you if you're caught down here. But I've got a reputation for exploring weird hidey holes, and I'm a pilot. I might, y'know, make it out alive."

there was a soft sigh from the other end of the comm. _"I guess you have a point,"_ the spy conceded. _"Still, I don't like asking other people to risk their lives for my conspiracy theories."_

"It doesn't count as a conspiracy theory if the illuminati _actually_ _are_ out to take over the world," Mari chuckled.

 _"That's a fair point, I suppose,"_ Kaji said, his voice even. _"Three minutes until we lose radio contact, by the way.''_

"Thanks." Mari grimaced as she looked around the tiny elevator for what felt like the hundredth time. "What kind of maniac even makes elevators that take _sixteen minutes_ to descend, anyway?"

" _Getting blueprints of NERV-J was like pulling teeth from a chicken… one that had been pre-emptively assassinated, in many cases. But I found some things. Among them was the fact that the bottom floor of the facility, this 'terminal dogma,' is just over two thousand meters below the bottom floor of central dogma."_

Mari almost swallowed her tongue. "Two _kilometers?!_ That's - that's -"

 _"Absurd, yeah. Two kilometers below the Eva cage floor. There are other floors between, too - none of them show up on the regular facility maps, and I don't even know where to start looking for access elevators. Some are probably uninhabited or used only for machinery. NERV-J headquarters is practically larger than Tokyo-3 itself."_

Mari narrowed her eyes, staring at the elevator door. "So much space to hide secrets in," she murmured. "I guess I'm about to learn a few. Logically, the deepest floor contains the darkest secret, eh?"

" _I hope so."_ Kaji was quiet for a moment. " _Look… be careful down there. I don't for a minute believe that this 'LCL Production Plant' is as innocuous as that sounds."_

"I will."

" _And much as I'd like photos, don't get caught with a camera. That'll guarantee your death."_

"Please, like you could stop me. I have a panic button setting on my phone anyway - if they catch me it'll be as if I never even turned it on down here."

" _I guess I know better than to try and change your mind this late in the play."_ Mari could practically hear Kaji shaking his head. " _I'm about to lose you. Please try to come back alive."_

"And you'd better not get killed while I'm down here, either," Mari murmured back.

Whatever Kaji might have said in response never came, as the radio hissed and died a second later.

"Well, no turning back now," she murmured to herself, the soft sound lost in the whirring of the descending elevator.

 **X-X-X **

Kensuke and Toji lived closer to the city center than Misato's apartment, and thus they could easily stay out longer than the pilot among them. As the afternoon approached evening, Shinji bade farewell to his friends and made for the rail stop.

However, about a block before he reached his destination, he was stopped by the sight of a tuft of cerulean hair.

 _Is that… Ayanami?_

Shinji glanced back at the station, but decided it was worth missing a train for the chance to observe NERV's most elusive and eccentric pilot in the wild. There would be other trains.

As he approached, it became clear that it was definitely Rei he had seen - though he couldn't see the girl's eyes from behind, she was the right height and her uniformly colored hair was exactly the right shade.

 _And she's wearing a school uniform, too. Weird._

The girl looked for all the world like she was lost, constantly stopping short and looking at road signs. Shinji decided it was probably best to break the ice in some manner; cute though her confusion was, it was also rather pitiable.

"Ayanami?" He called out, approaching slowly. Despite Rei's quiet and deliberate manner, he was all too aware of how much strength was hidden in her small figure - and how short her reaction time could be under pressure.

The girl whirled, so quickly that Shinji almost didn't see her move at all. "... Pilot Ikari," she acknowledged, the near-whisper almost lost in the ambient city noise.

"Are you okay, Ayanami?" Shinji frowned - Rei's usual poised attentiveness seemed unusually lacking today. "I've never seen you around this part of town… do you live nearby?"

"No," the girl replied, but offered no further explanation. She simply stared at Shinji, expressionless as ever.

"… Then why are you out here?" Shinji managed, desperately trying not to let the conversation die. "Um, if you don't mind me asking."

"I seem to be lost." Shinji blinked at the bland admission. "It is likely I made a mistaken turn when leaving the school."

"What?!" The other pilot exclaimed. "You've been wandering around lost since _school_ ended? How - couldn't you have called someone for help, or - or something?"

"Called someone for help?" Rei repeated blankly. She paused, and Shinji almost thought she had said all she intended to. Before he could interrupt, though, she spoke again: "The only phone number I know is Commander Ikari's."

 _Aren't you supposed to be his favorite? His replacement for his actual son?_ Shinji bit back the bitter sentiment. _For all that she's his favorite, though, she doesn't think to call him when she needs help. I somehow doubt he's much of a father to her either._

Deciding to try a different tactic, Shinji shook his head. "Listen… can you get home if I bring you to a train stop?"

Rei's head might have tilted. "I do not usually make use of the urban light rail."

 _Guess that's a no._ Shinji pinched the bridge of his nose. "Alright… what's your address?"

Rei rattled off a string of words that meant little to Shinji - it wasn't an area of town he was familiar with. He did, however, pick out 'west' in the street name.

 _The west side? It's practically a wasteland out there. Why would NERV stash their first pilot - and for a while, their_ _only_ _pilot - out there? And if I'm not mistaken, she lives alone, too…_

"I bet I can get you there," Shinji said aloud. "I know the rail routes pretty well, and the stations have maps. Come on, let's get you home."

 _No need to tell her that I know them because I tend to get on loop trains and sit for hours when I can't handle the stress of being a pilot…_

He opened his phone, typing out a text message to Misato to tell her he would be late coming home. That done, he started walking towards the train station, with the other pilot wordlessly trailing behind him.

 **X-X-X **

"Asuka? Shinji's going to be late home, so he can't cook dinner."

Asuka slid open her bedroom door and pushed past Misato in the same motion, a backpack already packed and slung over one shoulder. "Sucks to be you, then, because I'm heading out."

Misato stared after her, bemused. "What?"

"I'm staying the night at Hikari's. See you tomorrow evening."

For a moment, Misato was too taken aback to respond, but she managed to recover before Asuka made it to the door. "You have noon sync tests on Saturday!" She called.

Asuka stopped short with her hand on the door panel, then sagged slightly. "See you tomorrow at noon, then." She stepped out the door without another word.

A scant second later, and Misato's phone buzzed. Frowning, she pulled it out and opened the notification screen.

 **[Shinji-kun]:** _I'm going to be home late. Something came up._

"Something came up?" Misato repeated aloud. "That's all he has to say for himself? When did Shinji grow a spine, anyway?"

 **X-X-X **

**[Conscript]:** _Hey, Soryu. You've been to Ayanami's house before, right?_

 **[Ace Pilot]:**... _yeah. Why do you want to know?_

 **[Conscript]:** _How would you describe her general living conditions?_

 **[Ace Pilot]:** _Why?_

 **[Conscript]:** _Would you accept "because I want to know?"_

 **[Ace Pilot]:** _Yeah, no. Nice try._

 **[Ace Pilot]:** _Is there a point to all this? I was about to beat Hikari in smash 1v1._

 **[Conscript]:** _Alright._

 **[Conscript]:** _Did it look anything like this?_

\- **[Conscript] (Ikari Shinji)** has attached an image file! -

 **[Ace Pilot]:**... _Oh. I didn't realize you were actually THERE._

 **[Ace Pilot]:** _Honestly, if anything, it looked even worse when I visited. At least she's had the wherewithal to clean up the bloody bandages since then._

 **[Conscript]:** _Bloody bandages?!_

 **[Conscript]:** _Soryu, this is sick. How can they treat a pilot like this? She doesn't even have hot water!_

 **[Ace Pilot]:** _I know, I know. I freaked out when I saw it too. But, Gott im Himmel, don't do anything rash._

 **[Conscript]:** _Rash?! She's living in a ruin! An Evangelion pilot, one of us elite guardians of the human race, has a concrete box to call home!_

 **[Ace Pilot]:** _And you think NERV - all-powerful, all-knowing NERV - did that by accident?_

 **[Ace Pilot]:** _Your silence speaks volumes._

 **[Conscript]:** _Why the fuck would the Commander do that on purpose? Rei is his golden child, his replacement for his ACTUAL offspring._

 **[Conscript]:** _Why would he mistreat the only person he seems to care about?_

 **[Ace Pilot]:** _I don't think care is quite the word you're looking for, Shinji._

 **[Ace Pilot]:** _He pays attention to her, yeah, but he's the furthest thing from fatherly._

 **[Conscript]:** _Look, whatever. That's not the point._

 **[Conscript]:** _If the Commander could do that to one pilot, he could do it to any of us._

 **[Conscript]:** _He was going to stash me alone in some crummy apartment when I first moved here until Misato intervened._

 **[Conscript]:** _This isn't okay, Soryu!_

 **[Ace Pilot]:** _And what would you have ME do about it? You said it yourself. We're just cogs in the wheels, Shinji._

 **[Conscript]:** _Misato could do something, couldn't she? She wouldn't stand for this if she knew._

 **[Conscript]:** _... She doesn't know, right?_

 **[Ace Pilot]:** _I don't think so._

 **[Ace Pilot]:** _You're right that she wouldn't stand for it, which is why I didn't tell her when I found out myself._

 **[Ace Pilot]:** _I've been sitting on this because, news flash, NERV is practically the fucking Illuminati with how much cloak and dagger skullduggery goes on there._

 **[Ace Pilot]:** _I didn't think I could risk bringing this to light. I wouldn't put it past the Commander to silence a pilot, even his best pilot._

 **[Conscript]:** _But if we can get two pilots and the Ops Director on our side, that might be a different story?_

 **[Ace Pilot]:** _Might be, yeah._

 **[Ace Pilot]:** _Mari can be trusted, too. And there's someone else I want to tell about this, in case Commander Arschloch tries to shut us up anyway._

 **[Ace Pilot]:** _We need to talk about this. Soon._

 **[Conscript]:** _That would be easier if you weren't with Horaki-san right now._

 **[Ace Pilot]:** _You're not the only one with friends, Shinji. Bite me._

 **[Ace Pilot]:** _Hikari is a lovely girl who doesn't deserve to be sidelined because of a little internal affairs corruption._

 **[Ace Pilot]:** _Speaking of, I've kept her waiting long enough. Got to go._

 **[Conscript]:** _Fuck. Alright, I guess. See you tomorrow._

 **[Ace Pilot]:** _Yeah, you will._

 **[Ace Pilot]:** _Oh, and you'd better delete these messages. Break or destroy the phone, too, if you can come up with an excuse for it. They'll give you another one. 'Accidentally' dropping it in the cogs of the cage machinery will do nicely._

 **[Conscript]:** _What?! Why?_

 **[Ace Pilot]:** _You're discussing a minor conspiracy against NERV command, on a NERV-issued phone. You figure it out, dummkopf._

 **[Ace Pilot]:** _Bye._

 **[Conscript]:** _Soryu, wait!_

 **[Conscript]:** _Soryu? You there?_

 **[Conscript]:** _Dammit._

 **X-X-X **

Hikari looked up as Asuka walked back into her bedroom. "Done?"

"Yeah." Asuka sank back into the couch with a soft sigh, sliding into place beside her friend. "Sorry. Pilot stuff."

Hikari gave Asuka a concerned look, quirking an eyebrow. "Sure you want to go for another round of Smash? You look tired; we could stop if -"

"No. I'm good." Asuka folded her arms, recoiling from the perceived slight. "They wouldn't have made me a pilot if I couldn't handle the hard bits."

"Asuka." Hikari put her hand on the German girl's shoulder, and felt her stiffen under the touch. "Don't push yourself too hard. You're already a war hero. We all know the kind of battles you have to fight - hell, we saw how much the last angel hurt you. You don't need to prove anything to me."

 _War hero, huh? Poor, sweet Hikari. You have no idea what NERV is really like - hell, none of us really do, except maybe Kaji. There's nothing heroic about the dirt me and Shinji are digging in._

Asuka took a deep breath, straightening her back and shrugging off Hikari's hand. "One more round." She reached for the remote.

"You always win anyway."

" _I said, one more -"_ Asuka stopped mid-sentence as she realized she was growling. "Please?"

Apparently, it was good enough for Hikari, because she smiled and nodded. "One more round it is."

 **X-X-X**


	13. Lines Between Life And Death, part 1

**X-X-X **

_**Chapter 13**_

 **X-X-X **

_Ugh, this feels super weird._ Shinji folded his arms, trying not to look as tense as he felt. _Dammit, Soryu, it doesn't take that long to get changed! Ayanami was done ten minutes ago!_

Abruptly, as if waiting for the exact moment, the door slid open to reveal a fully dressed Asuka Langley Soryu.

"Ready? Let's go."

"Y - hey, wait!" Shinji hurried after the German pilot, struggling yet again to keep up with her severe pace. "Where are we going?"

"The northeast stairwell."

"What?" Shinji frowned in confusion. "This place has _stairs?"_

"Yeah, I was shocked too. Come on."

By the time they reached the stairs, Shinji was breathing hard - though not quite entirely out of breath. _Guess all the racing to keep up with my over-motivated fellow pilots has been doing me good,_ he thought idly.

Just inside the stairwell - which was so immense it faded into distant darkness at the limits of vision, both up and down - they encountered the elusive third member of their clade, leaning casually against the wall. She didn't even look winded.

"Hey," Mari said lazily. "That was quick."

Asuka stared. "Wh- how- how did you beat us here?!"

The English pilot smirked. "Ducked through server block AS43338. The techs get mad at you for stepping on the cables, but they know they can't stop a pilot."

Asuka deflated. "That makes sense, I guess," she muttered.

"Anyway." Shinji straightened. "So, uh. Has Soryu told you what's going on?"

Mari chuckled in the easy way she often did. "Yeah, we're digging up a scandal implicating NERV Command in the routine abuse of a pilot, right?" She shook her head. "I'm proud of you, princess. Fighting in the name of justice for a girl you profess to hate."

"What do you mean, _profess?"_ Asuka cocked an eyebrow suspiciously.

"Nothing, nothing at all. Did I even say that? Gosh, these stairwells sure do echo. Must be all the concrete." Mari shrugged. "Anyway, back to important stuff. Do you two clever cats have solid evidence to show?"

"Well… not with us, no, other than at least one photo of Ayanami's place," Shinji said haltingly. "But we could get more easily enough. It's appalling there. She's still a minor; there's got to be a case for at least abusive neglect."

"Well, that's something," Mari said thoughtfully. "More would be better, though. Judges like detailed evidence, military judges more so than civvies. What about you, princess?"

Asuka idly pressed two of her canine teeth together, before admonishing herself and straightening her posture. "Well, other than repeating more of what Shinji already covered, there's the ridiculous list of medication she's on," she said. "I don't know how easily we could prove medical malpractice, though."

"That wouldn't be easy even if she _wasn't_ exclusively under Doctor Akagi's care," Mari murmured.

"Actually, I think it might be possible to rope the good doctor into our cause on this one. Not easy, but possible."

Mari and Shinji both shot her a strange look, and Asuka grinned. "Everyone has a weakness," she said confidently. "And I have at least _one_ major secret I can hold over her head. Ever taken the time to watch how Ritsuko acts when she's around our dear captain?"

 **X-X-X **

The sun had long since set, and by Asuka's best guess it was approaching midnight. To get enough sleep for full function in school tomorrow _\- fucking Mondays, am I right -_ she should have gone to sleep more than an hour ago. However, tonight was looking like yet another night of insomnia.

 _Had more and more of those, recently,_ a dark thought whispered. _Seems like no matter how good you get, the stress still starts to bite eventually._

The fact that she was planning on effectively taking NERV itself to court in the near future probably wasn't helping, either.

Groaning softly, Asuka reached over to grab her phone.

 **[Soryu Asuka Langley]:** _Hey, Hikari. You awake?_

 **[Horaki Hikari]:** _I am now, I guess. What's up?_

The phone screen glowed back at her, suddenly accusing.

 _Was zur hölle was I thinking? I'm invincible, everyone knows that. I can't start whining at my classmates over my pathetic little troubles. 'I can't sleep' - big fucking deal. Lots of people suffer from insomnia. No reason anyone else should have to hear about it…_

 **[Horaki Hikari]:** _Soryu?_

 **[Horaki Hikari]:** _You still there?_

 _Fuck. Nothing for it now…_

 **[Soryu Asuka Langley]:** _Yeah, I'm still here._

 **[Horaki Hikari]:** _Can't sleep?_

Yet again, Asuka cursed her luck. Of _course_ she had to pick friends that were both sharp and perceptive.

 **[Soryu Asuka Langley]:** _yeah._

 **[Horaki Hikari]:** _wanna talk about it?_

No, she didn't. She didn't just _talk_ about her problems; even Mari had to pry them out of her by force.

 _But I doubt I can get away with being cagey now… she'll know something's off if I clam up suddenly. And I don't need to lose any friends right now, especially friends that aren't in NERV. Fuck._

 **[Soryu Asuka Langley]:** _haven't been sleeping as much, recently._

 **[Soryu Asuka Langley]:** _I dunno, maybe the stress of being on active duty is stacking up._

 **[Soryu Asuka Langley]:** _I'll be fine. It's not really a problem._

Even as she sent the message, she winced at how forced it sounded. There was nothing for it now, though.

 **[Horaki Hikari]:** _if you're sure._

Asuka let out a sigh of relief, thanking whatever gods that were left that Hikari hadn't decided to press the issue.

 **[Horaki Hikari]:** _but, you know you can always talk to me about anything, right?_

The German pilot rolled her eyes. _Yeahhh, I'll get back to you never, thanks. Time to move this conversation to other topics._

 **[Soryu Asuka Langley]:** _Sure._

 **[Soryu Asuka Langley]:** _Hey, as an aside, can you help me with my kanji homework on Saturday? There are still some things I'm just not getting._

 **[Horaki Hikari]:** _Sure! Come over any time._

Asuka smiled, rolling over on her bed and closing her eyes.

 _I didn't think I'd make any friends at all on assignment in Japan… I guess going to school was good for me after all._ She rolled her eyes. _Though I'll never fucking admit it. Honestly, making a college graduate go back to high school… madness…_

Though her mood had lifted considerably from the brooding darkness earlier, sleep still eluded her. After a few minutes, she idly reached for her phone again.

 **[Ace Pilot]:** _Hey Shinji, you awake?_

 **[Conscript]:** _Yeah. What's up?_

 **[Ace Pilot]:** _Can't sleep. You too, huh?_

 **[Ace Pilot]:** _The usual bullshit. This… thing with Blue has me tense, too._

 **[Conscript]:** _You and Mari, what's up with your nicknames?_

 **[Ace Pilot]:** _Oi, is that any way to talk to your CO?_

 **[Conscript]:** _We're off duty. I can talk to you any way I please._

 **[Conscript]:** _It beats 'first', I guess. Suits her._

 **[Conscript]:** _You doing okay? Misato's still not home, which means she's probably pulling an all nighter. We could go into the living room and you could kick my ass at Mario Kart._

Asuka felt herself tense.

More and more people seemed to be asking her that, lately. " _Are you okay?"_ Of course! She was the great Asuka Langley Soryu! She was strong, unbreakable even. She didn't need _concern._ She could, and would, fight until she was killed.

 _But death takes more forms than you know…_

A frown crept unbidden across her face. Where had _that_ thought come from?

Brushing the worry aside, she began rapidly typing into her phone. _Fun as it sounds, I'll not succumb to weakness so easily. Besides, he's my subordinate now. We can't be friends-friends. It's against the rules, or something… right?_

Before she could hit _send,_ however, her phone screen abruptly went completely black. Asuka felt a jolt of anxiety, her throat closing up in a rising wave of awful, familiar stress.

 _Oh, no. Please. Not now._

A heartbeat later the phone buzzed, emitting a shrill ringing that definitely wasn't its normal ringtone. The menacing red of the NERV logo appeared on the dark screen, with the familiar EMERGENCY tag in the same shade.

Outside the apartment complex, the deathly quiet night air of of Tokyo-3 was split by the wail of a siren - a siren that had become uncomfortably familiar to Asuka in recent weeks.

 _Of fucking course. Well, when duty calls…_

Asuka leapt out of bed and raced for the door, barely stopping to throw a coat over her pajamas.

 **X-X-X**

Supreme Commander Gendo Ikari, director of the NERV-J branch and absolute monarch of the global organization that was NERV itself, didn't sleep much even during the quiet idle hours when his kingdom had little of interest going on.

He reached for the glass of water on his desk, palming a yellow tablet into it as he drained the remains of its contents.

"Report," he said, his voice just a touch harsher than its usual flat menace.

"Yes, sir." Misato was a picture of discipline, standing straight and radiating an aura of command. "At 11:47 PM on Monday, the short range AT detector grid on the western coast picked up a powerful signature in the sea of Japan. Preliminary analysis has its trajectory as heading towards the Nagano city metro zone. Evangelion Pilots are inbound for deployment as we speak."

"Nagano," Fuyutsuki mused. "The Matsushiro facility?"

"Uncertain, sir, but it seems likely. Dr. Akagi is en route from the genesis dogma radiolab; I expect she has a clearer answer based on their data."

Gendo looked back up at the big screen, his face blank as ever. "That suggests they may be refining their strategies," he said quietly.

"Mm." Fuyutsuki nodded. "Matsushiro holds nothing of direct interest to them, but NERV-J will be crippled if we lose our auxiliary facilities."

The main door of the control room hissed open as Ritsuko strode imperiously onto the floor, a lit cigarette in her mouth and a nervous Maya trailing in her wake. "The anomaly is not moving rapidly, but I advise we deploy with all due haste," she rattled off sharply. "Second stage analysis indicates that this entity's AT field is _very_ strong - at least half again as strong as Gaghiel's. If it decides to weaponize its AT potential, it could easily KO an Evangelion in no more than two or three hits."

Misato turned back to the big screen, which was showing a bewildering array of data sheets. "That's not good," she murmured. "Two of our Evangelions aren't even back to full battle capacity… including our _best_ Evangelion."

"And a pallet rifle isn't likely to do much against an AT field that strong." Ritsuko's voice was hard. "It'll require close quarters combat to bring it down."

"Do we have a visual?" Misato's eyes were focused on the data readouts.

"Aye aye, ma'am. Bringing it up now." Several data displays compressed down, and a camera feed appeared.

A murmur passed through the control room at the oddity displayed. The object was perfectly cubic, each side as long as an Evangelion was tall, and inclined so that one of its corners pointed straight down. Its surface was mirrored, and it was suspended high above the ocean by an unknown force.

"Our odds are never good enough, but I never thought we'd _literally_ have the dice against us," Misato murmured. A strange expression flickered across Ritsuko's face - a cringe at the mediocre pun, mixed with a smile.

The captain turned away from the screen, looking up to the Commander's unapproachable upper level. "Commander, requesting permission to deploy my Evangelions. I intend to assign Pilots Soryu, Ikari and Ayanami to this mission."

"Doctor Akagi," Gendo said. "Your input?"

Ritsuko had already become engrossed in her ever-present tablet computer, and seemed to be listening with only half an ear. However, she looked up at the Commander's request.

"I recommend holding Pilot Ayanami on reserve with Pilot Illustrious. It will make the fight tougher on the deployed Pilots, but I would not risk leaving the Geofront with less than two ready Evangelion units at this time."

Gendo laced his fingers, leaning forward slightly. "With three Pilots, we have better odds of swiftly and decisively ending the battle. Explain your reasoning."

Ritsuko didn't even look up from her work this time, tapping away almost disinterestedly as she replied. "The anomaly is not yet close enough for my new toys - that is, Section 3's new high-performance telemetry arrays - to accurately read. Without that information, I cannot know if this AT anomaly is the primary blue pattern, or if we are looking at a seraph."

Gendo didn't move a muscle. "We have not found evidence of the presence of any other angelic entities at this time. Two of three angels so far have attacked alone." Though no-one could see it, he narrowed his eyes behind their orange-tinted filters. "This anomaly's AT field is more than strong enough for it to be a fully fledged angel."

"You have my recommendation, sir," Ritsuko replied bluntly. She glanced momentarily at Misato, then looked up properly, amending herself. "My secondary course of action would be to do nothing at all, other than perhaps prepare all cages for launch, and wait for the anomaly to make landfall before enumerating the Pilots we will sortie."

The Commander met Ritsuko's eyes, his own narrowing slightly. The doctor, however, did not back down; it wasn't the first time she had butted heads with Gendo, nor would it be the last. He didn't trust her loyalty and didn't like the fact that she had such privileged access to all of NERV's boltholes and secrets - but, at the end of the day, he needed her. With the death of her mother, Ritsuko had become the sole living expert on many critical branches of Project Evangelion. Even Gendo's own considerable intellect paled before her sheer mass of knowledge.

"Very well," Gendo said at length. "Captain Katsuragi, you are hereby authorized to deploy the second and third children against the anomaly. You have command of this operation."

"Sir, yes sir."

 **X-X-X**

"Captain, can you get me an engagement range estimate?"

" _Not without sending something out on a suicide mission."_ Misato's voice was cold.

"If the answer's no, we can attack blind," Asuka replied, her tone equally devoid of inflection. "But I like our odds a lot less. I can guarantee it'll get the first shot in."

On the comm video feed, the captain's shoulders lowered slightly. " _We'll get you an estimate. Sit tight;we're going to see if a drone can get its attention. If we're lucky, there'll be no need for a human air force pilot to die on this exercise."_

Asuka didn't move a single inch from her firing position, crouched behind a beachside dune with Moloch's pallet rifle raised to her shoulder. Her right eyes stared down the ironsights, their optic implants on maximum zoom and light enhancement.

The distant speck on the horizon - invisible to the naked eye, in the pre-dawn darkness - was clear enough to Asuka. A hovering cube, rotating slowly as it advanced. It wasn't moving terribly fast, but it didn't seem to be deliberately taking its time either.

" _Why are_ _you_ _the one who gets to be in cover for this?"_ Shinji complained. Asuka glanced over at where Ishtar was hovering in the corner of her HUD, then at the comm video feed from Shinji's entry plug.

"I dunno. You tell me, Mr. 'One point two AT strength factor'." Asuka tried to keep a mocking tone out of her impression of Ritsuko's voice, but she doubted she succeeded entirely. "Maybe because you're piloting the Evangelion with the toughest energy shielding that NERV can deploy? Oh, and the fact that your autotargeting suite is actually functional and calibrated, since Ishtar wasn't dragged out of active repairs for this."

" _I guess that's a point,"_ Shinji replied grudgingly. " _Ugh. How long till it sees us, again?"_

" _The drone's inbound,"_ Misato said. " _Sit tight."_

"Oh, I see it," Asuka murmured. "Ishtar, I'm relaying my tac map."

" _Thanks."_ Shinji exhaled slowly, and Asuka watched the tension trickle out of his posture. His expression betrayed no emotion.

 _He's becoming more a soldier every day. I used to see that as a good thing, and speaking as a military officer it_ _is_ _a good thing, but… it was never fair that he had to. Gah, suddenly my 'conscript' jokes don't seem as funny anymore._

" _Drone entering bombing range in fifteen seconds,"_ Misato announced. Her voice sounded strained.

On Asuka's tac map, the fast-moving speck that represented the drone swooped over the anomaly in a lazy arc.

" _Drone has fired its payload."_ Lieutenant Hyuga's voice, this time.

Asuka narrowed her eyes at the HUD feeds, but they resolutely displayed no change. The zoomed-in optical display showed a brief, bright spark on the cube's surface, but the explosion left no mark.

"It didn't even blink," she murmured. " _Was zur hölle?"_

" _That's not good."_ Misato looked away from the comm feed, barking orders out over the control room. " _Get me an F-2A on the same target. Instruct the pilot to break off as soon as they fire."_

Asuka and Shinji stared at their tac maps, barely even breathing.

" _Hey, Soryu."_

Asuka's eyes flicked to the comm screen, but she gave no reply. Shinji was apparently alert enough to notice even that subtle gesture, though, because he met her eyes in a similar near-motionless manner.

" _Would you say it's the waiting that sucks more,"_ he murmured softly, " _or the adrenaline fueled terror of actually fighting them?"_

Asuka couldn't stop a humorless smile from crossing her face. "Definitely the actual fighting," she replied, her voice equally soft. "The waiting gives you anxiety, but it's the actual cuts and burns that linger."

A moving dot appeared on her tac map, inching towards the anomaly's location.

" _Second reconnaissance skirmish is underway. Sit tight."_

Asuka clenched her fist, trying to stop herself from drumming her fingers on the control column. The nervous tension was almost palpable.

Abruptly, a third comm feed popped into existence on Asuka's HUD - one displaying Ritsuko's face. " _We've got a lock on the anomaly with the short range high-performance arrays. No points for guessing it - that's a seraph, not an angel."_

" _Scheisse,"_ Asuka hissed. "Any sign of its mom yet?"

" _Not so far, no. We've moved all sensor grids to active scanning, but it'll be a bit before that will tell us anything useful."_

On the other comm feed, Misato's eyes narrowed. " _The F-2A is en route. Hold position."_

All eyes, both in the control room and in entry plugs, were glued to the tactical map display. A subtle flicker of movement in a comm display caught Asuka's attention - Maya's hand sneakily reached toward the lit cigarette in Ritsuko's mouth. Before the younger woman could seize her target, however, Ritsuko's own hand caught her wrist.

" _Don't."_ It was too quiet for the comm mic to pick it up, but Asuka could easily read her lips. " _Not now."_

Hyuga's comm window appeared briefly. " _F-2A entering attack range in fifteen seconds."_ Then it blinked away again.

 _Scheisse, all these comms. Am I on a battlefield, or in a fucking conference call?_ Asuka ground her canine teeth together. _Welcome to the bureaucracy of command, Lieutenant Langley-Soryu. You had a taste fighting Gaghiel; now it's permanent._

The attack aircraft abruptly appeared in the corner of Asuka's night vision optics, closing quickly. She minimized the other displays with a flick of the mind.

Two comms opened in the minimized display in the same heartbeat. " _Ten seconds -"_ came Hyuga's tense report, overlaid with Maya's panicked voice crying " _AT Energy spike detected!"_

Then a lance of fire cut the night sky in half, almost blinding the Evangelion Pilots through their light-enhancing night vision optics. Asuka winced, reeling from the residual flash in her retina.

" _Report!"_ Misato barked.

" _Some kind of energy weapon."_ The initial urgency was gone from Maya's voice, replaced with machine-like precision. " _Preliminary assay has it as something like the third Angel's AT attacks, but significantly stronger. The radiolab is already working on a deeper analysis."_

Asuka didn't need to hear the details to know what had happened to the unlucky pilot of the attack aircraft. A strike with that kind of brute force wasn't even likely to have left a black box.

 _How dare you. hurensohn, you just killed a human being._ She took a moment to indulge her anger, letting her veins boil with red-hot fury. _I hope you brought your best. I was going to fucking bury you anyway, but now I'm_ _really_ _going to enjoy it._

" _Engagement range appears to be no less than fifteen kilometers. Watch yourselves, Pilots."_

"And it knows when it's being attacked by a person, not a drone," Asuka murmured. "This just keeps getting better and better."

" _How are we gonna take this thing?"_ Shinji leaned forward in his seat. " _If pallet rifles aren't going to scratch it, how are we supposed to attack? Clearly we can't just walk up and tackle it."_

"I don't know," Asuka muttered, gritting her teeth. "Doctor Akagi. Do you think that AT laser beam is powerful enough to punch through a hill?"

" _Uncertain. From the preliminary readings, that depends on the hill on question."_

"Well, dunes are what we've got," Asuka replied. "Ishtar! New plan. Move twenty paces up the beach and then get behind a sand dune. With that fucking cannon it's got, I'm not so sure your AT field will save you."

" _Yes ma'am."_ The massive purple Evangelion stood from her marksman's position and strode the the northeast, stopping and dropping to a crouch behind the nearest tall embankment of sand.

" _It's picking up speed."_ Hyuga looked as tense as he sounded, hunched over his terminal with narrowed eyes. " _ETA to engagement range with Moloch is eight minutes."_

 _Waiting… Fucking waiting again._ Asuka clenched and unclenched her fists. _Keep it cool, Asuka. Stay frosty. Don't psych yourself out - you're not gonna get ambushed, you can just chill out for a few._

 _Breathe in._

 _Breathe out._

 _Breathe in._

 _Breathe out…_

 **X-X-X**

 _This body is 10.55 years old and its heart has beat 443,694,151 times._

"Hey. Ayanami, yeah? Can I call you Rei? It's fine if the answer's no."

Rei, who had been staring blankly at the primed entry plug of Unit 00, turned to see a taller figure clad in a green and khaki plugsuit - the Fifth Child, Pilot Mari Makinami Illustrious.

"I… guess I'll take that as a no. Anyway, I'm curious - your Eva here, Asherah, isn't she the first Evangelion prototype?"

 _The first successful one. The failures lie alongside my dead self in the graveyard in terminal dogma._ "Yes," Rei replied, her voice flat.

 _This body is 10.55 years old and its heart has beat 443,694,195 times._

"That's pretty cool," Mari continued, without missing a beat. "Mind if I look inside? Don't worry, I'll just be a minute."

"Please do not." _The Rapture uplinking hardware is classified. Dr. Akagi has recommended that Pilots other than myself be restricted from observing it._

"Why not?" Mari blithely ignored Rei's request, stepping up onto the catwalk and then into the cockpit. "Woah, weird. Looks totally different from my entry plug."

 _Of course… a recommendation is not an order. Knowing too much of Eva invites the risk of being silenced, likely via execution, but I cannot stop Pilot Illustrious from taking that risk if she so chooses._ Rei remained silent as Mari examined the interior of the entry plug; the other pilot looked back briefly with a questioning look, but Rei's meticulously flat affect offered no answer.

 _This body is 10.55 years old and its heart has beat 443,694,262 times._ Familiar though it was, the thought didn't feel like her own. Strictly speaking, it never had been - Rei had long known it was a function of the ancient soul within her, reacting reflexively even as it slept to the presence of life it had spawned. Recently, though, it had become less of an idle ticking to occupy herself with when she was doing nothing else - and more an incessant droning that sometimes threatened to drown out all other thought.

"What are all these cables for?"

With an effort of will, Rei came back to herself. "They are part of an obsolete entry plug design," she replied.

 _This body is 10.55 years old and its heart has beat 443,694,280 times._

"Oh, and Asherah needs an older model of entry plug because her prototype systems are more primitive?"

 _That is correct, although it is not the only reason._

"Hey, Ayanami? You okay?"

 _This body is 10.55 years old and its heart has beat 443,694,295 times._

"All my required functions are within acceptable parameters."

"I'm gonna take that as a no." Mari stepped away from Unit 00's entry plug and, with slow steps, walked over to where Rei stood. "Seriously, I'm trying to decide whether you're about to go catatonic or just keel over and pass out. No one with 'acceptable parameters' looks like they just snorted the world's largest dose of oxycotton."

 _This body is 10.55 years old and its heart has beat 443,694,335 times._

Rei tilted her head back, just far enough to meet the taller pilot's eyes. "Your concern is misplaced, Pilot Illustrious."

"Oh, psh, call me Mari! And, frankly, I don't believe you."

 _This body is 10.55 years old and its heart has beat 443,694,356 times._

"I am not unwell, Pilot Illustrious."

For half a second, Mari's eyes narrowed, but the moment passed; it seemed she had decided to let the matter go. "Well. If you say so," she replied. "I hope you're real sure, though. You'd better not drop the ball if we get deployed."

 _This body is 10.55 years old and its heart has beat 443,694,384 times._

The PA system crackled. " _Evangelion Units Zero and Five to red standby. First and Fifth children to their entry plugs."_

Mari looked up. "Must be heating up out there," she muttered, turning away from the other pilot and striding towards the cage's side door. "Catch you on the field, Blue."

The English pilot waved over her shoulder as she said her goodbye, but Rei did not return the gesture. Mari didn't look back as she left the cage.

 **X-X-X **

" _Scheisse!"_

Asuka cursed as the beach sand slid under Unit 02's feet. Fortunately, she was already dropping to her knees; she fell prone, and the seraph's death ray vaporized only empty air and the sand on the crest of the dune.

She dropped her pallet rifle and pushed herself up, maneuvering Unit 02 back into a crouch. Shinji was already dashing towards the angel, and each step of the purple Evangelion kicked up a huge plume of sand.

" _Ishtar, be advised I can only give you three or four seconds of warning before the seraph fires."_ Maya's voice was tense. " _Stay ready to dodge on my mark."_

" _Acknowledged!"_

Asuka stood up and started sprinting towards her target in the same motion. Her hand reflexively went for her prog-knife, but she checked herself; the energy blade would be of little use until they could bring down the seraph's nigh-invincible AT field.

 _Output level 1: 19:45 minutes to shutdown. 4:59 minutes to red line._

Reaching her target, Asuka drew back a fist and struck - then bit back a shriek of pain as her wrist nearly broke from the strain. A blue ripple played over the seraph's AT shielding, but it stayed strong.

"Ishtar!" Asuka yelled. "I need some magic over here!"

" _On it!"_ Shinji ceased his own efforts with his prog-knife, sheathing the weapon and slamming Unit 01's hands into the seraph's AT field. Asuka heard him grunt with concentration, and the faintest sheen of orange rippled over the barrier of blue light.

Asuka drew back and struck again, eliciting the telltale echoing sonic boom of an arm pivoting several dozen meters of armor with muscles that could exert effectively immeasurable force. The sync feedback felt like punching the world's heaviest professional boxer dead in the chest - but the seraph's AT field collapsed, rapidly peeling away from the break point.

Asuka twisted her shoulders, striking with her off hand. While marginally weaker, the left hook had no energy shielding to contend with, and landed dead-center on the flat of the seraph's cuboid body.

The blow produced one of the loudest noises Asuka had ever heard. Not _the_ loudest - it wasn't quite on the level of the report from the boosted AT ray she and Rei had inadvertently created in the training field, nor was it comparable to unshielded exposure to a thermonuclear shockwave at close proximity - but more than enough to make her cringe and shake her head to dislodge the residual ringing in her ears.

 _We constantly handle artillery-grade armaments, and face enemies with similar arsenals. I think it's high time we had dynamic sound filters put in our Evas… or, if that's already a thing, it's high time they were upgraded for real combat._

The seraph shrieked, letting out a distorted and inhuman wail that echoed across the beach. Asuka grinned as she took in the result of her attack - a long, narrow crack split the face of the cube from edge to edge. A viscous, bright blue liquid leaked from the injury.

Then the cry deepened, and the rivulets of blood began to steam.

" _Mark!"_ Maya yelled. " _It's charging its weapon!"_

" _Scheisse -"_

Asuka strained her Evangelion to its limit, fighting to throw herself sideways without slipping on the treacherous beach sand. She was only partially successful.

Several pinpoints of light gathered at the closest corner of the seraph's body, growing impossibly bright in the space of a split second.

Then the world went white.

 **X-X-X**

Most of the staff in the control room - even the Commander himself - were focused intently on the big screen, where the battle cameras showed the red and violet Evangelions facing down a massive hovering cube. The room was locked in a tense silence, broken only by the occasional barked command from Misato or update from the support staff.

One head was not turned towards the big screen. Instead, Dr. Ritsuko Akagi was watching the screen of her tablet computer, and the phone in her other hand.

"... Where?" Her voice was quiet, but hard. "Of course. Is it - yes. Do you have that confirmed? Alright. Update me if anything, and I mean anything, changes. Over and out."

Ritsuko pocketed her phone, and turned to look up at the Commander's lofty station. "Sir, the radiolab has confirmed another AT signal in the pacific ocean. A significantly different one." She glanced briefly at the tablet. "While I cannot yet _absolutely_ confirm it is the primary pattern, it is in excess of half again as strong."

The Commander inclined his head downwards, focusing his attention on the doctor. "Elaborate," he said harshly.

"ETA is… hmm, looks like a few hours yet before it reaches Tokyo-3. Which, should have said, is its projected destination. The MAGI currently have it positioning flush over the geofront at 0545 hours."

On the auxiliary level, several staffers clamored at once. Lieutenant Ibuki shouted a warning to the deployed pilots, and the big screen lit up with a bright fireball in every battle camera. Misato didn't even twitch, remaining a perfect picture of composure.

The Commander remained equally still, although he now appeared entirely uninterested in the battle at hand. "An angel of that caliber would fatally injure an Eva with a single shot… to speak nothing of its defensive capabilities. It will require a new strategy." He inclined his head downwards a fraction of an inch. "Call all command staff to the briefing room as soon as the ops director can spare her attention. If you have any inspiration in the mean time, feel free to act upon it."

"Yessir." Ritsuko jotted a note on her tablet, then continued tapping.

 _I've got some ideas about that already, but…_ She shook her head. _Well, they say unique problems call for unique solutions._

 **X-X-X**


	14. Lines Between Life And Death, part 2

**A/N: I'm so sorry for the mountain of words in the briefing room scene but it seemed to be the only way my brain would let me get past the writer's block :/**

 **Also, the "positron rifle" (whatever the fuck that's supposed to mean) is some grade A nonsense, so I changed it to a long-range artillery piece I could (almost) actually believe the existence of**

 **X-X-X**

 _ **Chapter 14**_

 **X-X-X**

A cascade of static and flashing colors filled Asuka's view. She was blind, except for the HUD elements, which appeared to be working normally. From the physical feedback, Unit 02 seemed to be lying on her back in the sand; Asuka couldn't identify anything that felt like serious damage, but there was an odd weight imbalance somewhere on her thorax.

 _Reboot and recalibrate upper optics,_ she mentally commanded, hammering the manual controls on the column as she broke into vocalization. " _Now, verdammt._ I can work with just two eyes if I have to -"

Half of the visual display went black, then blinked back into a normal view. Asuka was, indeed, lying on her back. Her display showed a lovely view of the starry night sky.

With another blink, the smear of noise in the lower half of the display vanished, and the upper half expanded to fill the display. Asuka cringed at the reduction in up-down field of vision.

"Reboot and recalibrate lower optics," she grunted, shifting to roll the mech onto its side. "Ishtar! Report!"

" _I'm okay,"_ came the other pilot's voice, although the strained tone belied his words. " _It fired at you, not me. The angel - err, seraph - seems to have stopped; I don't think it can charge another shot so quickly, but I can't get through its AT field alone."_

Asuka vaulted to her feet as Unit 02's second set of eyes came back online. Unit 01 and the seraph were currently locked in a standoff - the Evangelion was blocking its path towards Nagano, and the alien being was clearly not quick enough to out-maneuver Shinji.

Lieutenant Aoba's face popped up on Asuka's comms, looking grim. " _Moloch, the Seraph's attack didn't damage the Eva herself, but she's lost a significant chunk of armor over her right side. Step carefully; you've got a nasty weak spot now."_

"Got it," Asuka ground out. "Ishtar, it looks like it fires on the active attacker. I want you to follow up the AT neutralization this time; if it sets its sights on you, I'll hit it from behind. Ready?"

" _As I'll ever be."_ Shinji drew Unit 01's left prog-knife, and for a second, Asuka felt extremely foolish. _Of course a knife in the off hand would augment the follow up after brute force strike - I can't believe I missed that -_

"Go!"

Drawing her own knife in her left hand, she dashed forward, channeling all the AT energy she could muster into Unit 02's right fist.

She couldn't hold back the grunt of pain this time, and there was a sharp cracking sound as most of her gauntlet shattered under the impact of a jumping strike against the seraph's full-strength AT field. It felt like every bone in her arm had been dislocated and forced back into place in the same motion.

But, as she struck, she _saw_ the AT field flicker - and a millisecond later, the report of Shinji's strike broke it completely.

With an immense hovering cube between her and Unit 01, Asuka couldn't see exactly when Shinji struck. She presumed it was near enough to when she did, because the seraph only let out a single discernable scream; once again loud enough to leave her ears ringing. The crystalline material proved to be just plastic enough that it didn't crack as her knife went in, but the seraph seemed to feel just as injured by the action.

The seraph's howl of agony definitely seemed to last longer this time, however. As it finally started to lose steam, Asuka glanced briefly at her comm windows.

 _Wait, are they shouting? Can't hear a fucking thing over this goddamn screaming beast -_

And then the seraph fired its energy weapon.

From the other side of it, Asuka's view was limited, but she managed to observe the seraph's entire body separating into two discrete halves with a scant two or three meters between them. Suspended dead in the center was the core, which was the source of the death ray.

The death ray that was striking Unit 01 dead center in the chest. Asuka distantly registered Shinji's scream of agony over the comm.

 _Hurensohn!_

The seraph reassembled itself in another blink of an eye, but Asuka knew that its offensive resources were drawn from its AT field strength - it would be weak for a few seconds after firing.

Snarling furiously, she pulled her prog-knife back and stabbed again. This time she twisted, pushing the handle of the blade sideways until it snapped.

 _Well, who the fuck needs a knife, anyway?_

She pivoted her shoulders in a straight punch, inclined downwards to strike the sloped body of the seraph dead-on. Lacking armor over Unit 02's right fist, she felt at least one finger break, but she was riding too high on adrenaline to care.

 _I'll kill you! I'll fucking kill you, arschloch!_

The punch had left several new cracks, including a large one between the two stab wounds she'd inflicted. The seraph's AT field shimmered back into position, but her hands were already through it: She jammed her fingers into the fissure and _pulled._

There was an earsplitting _boom_ as the seraph's body sustained another massive break. A fresh torrent of blue blood poured from the wound, and the AT field around it flickered.

"Oh, yeah. I've fucking got you now. You're dying and you fucking know it," Asuka growled. Jamming her hand deeper into the wound - although from the consistency of the 'flesh', the word _crevasse_ felt more appropriate - she wedged her elbow against the opposing side and put the force of her shoulder into widening the crack.

The seraph effectively fell apart. Its body was riven into two uneven chunks of blue-stained crystal, and unlike when it fired its energy weapon, it was clearly not capable of reassembling itself on a whim this time. Although its AT field still suspended both pieces of its body, it could no longer properly hold itself together.

Most notable, however, was the red orb embedded in the jagged surface of one segment.

 _Time to end this, Lieutenant Langley-Soryu._

Pushing through the AT field felt extremely odd; it seemed to simultaneously have the consistency of thick cobwebs and jelly. However, in the seraph's weakened state - and with Unit 02's arms already through - it wasn't much of a challenge for Asuka to step right into the thing's guts.

 _Such as they are. Hell, freakish alien monstrosities with eldritch magical powers - why not be made of rock, too? Makes as much fucking sense as anything else!_

Her second step put her just close enough. It was an awkward angle, and she had to use her left hand, but she was within striking range.

She swung another punch, connecting Unit 02's gargantuan fist with the seraph's core -

And once again her Evangelion's sensors blanked out into static and white noise, this time with a _lot_ more pain involved. The force of the blast lifted the Evangelion like a toy and bodily threw her; Unit 02 landed hard on her back and skidded some distance in the sand.

For a moment all Asuka could do was lie there. Even with the hydrostatic cushioning of the LCL, she'd been thrown around in the cockpit hard enough that there _had_ to be a risk of whiplash. On top of that, the feedback from being hit by a massive explosion had left throbbing spots of pain all over Asuka's body.

Gingerly, she pressed some of the buttons on the control column. The glitching HUD vanished, then reappeared, apparently largely fixed; the external optics were still showing offline static.

 _Fuel at 72%. Reactor output level 4 [automatically set]: 5.2 years remaining. Current power output level is sufficient for life support and entry plug subsystems ONLY._

 _Entry plug interface active. Electronic subsystems and central nervous system powered off. Synchronicity capped at 10% while in low power mode._

 _EVA-UNIT02 has sustained DEBILITATING DAMAGE. Level 1 or 2 activation not recommended._

 _Noncombatant mobility functions: OUT OF CALIBRATION RANGES. Mobility may not be fully functional. Level 3 activation is recommended only in the capacity of retreating for extraction._

"Reboot… and recalibrate all optics," she groaned. "Power up to level three activation. Reactivate comms."

The moment the comm interface appeared, Misato's worried face popped up on her HUD. " _Moloch! Asuka, thank God you're still kicking. The seraph is dead, but we haven't been able to raise Shinji on the comms. Ishtar is cold; even if that death ray_ _didn't_ _hit her reactor, she's as good as wrecked until we can drag her back to the repair bay."_ The captain looked at something to the side of the video feed. " _A helicopter will pick you both up from Matsushiro. The angel proper has been located, and the Commander wants all officers briefed on the battle plan… and in Shinji's case, Headquarters has better medical facilities than Matsushiro."_

 _Well, a soldier's work is never done. And fuck if I'm leaving a teammate down… one who kind-of took a bullet for me, no less._

The optics flickered, faded to black, then resolved into a proper image. Asuka idly noted the cracks over two of the eye lenses as she pushed herself painfully to her feet, and began limping over to where the purple Evangelion lay.

 **X-X-X**

"Doctor Akagi." The Commander's voice somehow managed to keep a hint of its trademarked menacing echo, even in the significantly more confined space of the briefing room. "You said you had ideas pertaining to this new threat. You have the floor."

"Thank you, sir." Ritsuko quickly tapped out the instruction to connect her tablet to the briefing room's wall display; a large heatmap overlay of the west coast of Japan appeared, with a glaring blue dot offshore that clearly represented an angel's AT signature. "At fifty-one minutes after midnight, the pacific grid picked up an AT signal significantly stronger than that of the first seraph. Although we cannot yet with absolute certainty assert that this is the angelic master unit, at a more than _one hundred percent_ increase in AT strength and a trajectory bound for Tokyo-3, we have no choice but to treat this new threat as our primary focus."

There were murmurs of assent from the assembled officers. Even the Commander nodded slightly.

"Current predictions have the angel in a position for a clear shot at the geofront dome's thinnest point by 0548 hours." A slide showing a projected route of the angel across the Tokyo-3 metro zone appeared. "The amount of time it will take to puncture the armored defense layer is currently unclear - I've ascertained that its energy weapon behaves similarly to that of its subunit, but the data isn't complete yet. Oblique shots will take a great deal of time, but acute fire may damage the angel itself with splash damage." Ritsuko paused, taking a deep breath. "In the worst case scenario, it will take the angel about six hours to breach the geofront. In the best case, it will take about thirty. Time, therefore, is of the essence."

Lieutenant-Commander Fuyutsuki inclined his head slightly. "Should we presume, then," he said, "that you are already working on a plan to defeat this thing?"

"Better," Ritsuko said, trying not to smirk. "I've already finished my plan - rather, mine and the good captain's, since she suggested some aspects of it - and issued relevant orders. It's being set up as we speak; Captain Katsuragi has titled it Operation Yashima."

"On whose authority, doctor?" Fuyutsuki replied, his voice chilling sharply.

"On my own, as second officer of NERV. You're welcome to overrule me, of course, but trust me - if I could come up with a better plan than this, I already would have." The doctor stared right into Fuyutsuki's gaze, daring him to challenge her.

They were not given a chance to finish their staredown, however. "Proceed, Doctor," Gendo said, his voice as neutral as ever.

"Thank you, sir." Ritsuko returned her attention to her tablet, bringing up a bewildering mess of charts and still photos from battle footage with the seraph - as well as shots of the angel itself - an eight-sided monstrosity that was much, much larger than the seraph had been. "A single direct hit from this angel's seraph was enough to completely incapacitate an Evangelion unit; the unit with the strongest available AT field, no less. With the AT power increase of this angel, a direct hit would likely _destroy_ an Evangelion - and preliminary fire tests have established an engagement range significantly broader than its child unit. Now -"

"Wait, wait." This time it was Misato who interrupted. "Preliminary fire tests? You mean like we performed with the seraph? You didn't tell me that."

"Yes, Captain," Ritsuko replied, her voice ironclad with schooled professionalism. "Exactly so. And before you ask, the pilot was a volunteer, and knew that his mission was certain death."

Misato uttered a curse under her breath, shooting her lover a betrayed look, but fell silent.

"Now. As the type of close engagement our Evangelions usually excel at is clearly not viable, I have requisitioned the use of an experimental artillery piece designed by the JSSDF." An incredibly complex technical schematic appeared in the slideshow. "Named… ugh… the 'positron rifle,' for some reason, it is in fact a rail gun, and the highest-energy kinetic projectile weapon currently in existence. It is being moved to the JSSDF base near Mount Futago as we speak; it will arrive no later than 0630 hours."

"That's _after_ the angel will be within attack range of Tokyo-3," Fuyutsuki said, his expression souring. "I'd like that to be a lot faster."

"Can't be done, without risking damage to the weapon. It's massive, and - as with all Lorentz-based projectile systems - somewhat delicate. As our only currently viable weapon, I'm not going to take that risk." Ritsuko flicked to the next slide, showing what appeared to be a gridded map of Japan. "The rest of this plan is a much larger-scale endeavor. Since we cannot neutralize this angel's AT field, our only remaining option is to puncture it by brute force. The 'positron' rifle is gauged to fire with absolute maximum specs of a hundred and fifty thousand kilogram projectile at about twelve hundred meters per second. I intend to exceed that calibration by as much as I possibly can - the ideal velocity to be certain of punching through that AT field is ten kilometers per second."

"Get to the point, Doctor," Fuyutsuki snapped.

"But of course, sir. The short version is that we are commandeering Japan's entire power grid for the sake of Operation Yashima. I have already drawn up the immediately surrounding network layout, and captain Katsuragi has already made the relevant calls. A positively staggering grid of temporary transformers and lines is being set up across the nation; I have no exact estimate as to when this will be complete, but it will be no earlier than 1200 hours today - likely later." Ritsuko took a deep breath, ignoring the concerned murmuring that swept the room. "The positron rifle could be fired early, if the circumstances become dire, but the AT field of the angel will require a staggering amount of energy to pierce. Our best odds come about if we can focus the absolute maximum level of power into a single round, which requires this electrical network be fully online. In any other scenario the gunner will have to time their shot so as to hit the angel exactly as it drops its AT field to fire its _own_ weapon."

"This… gunner," the Commander said. "They would be an Evangelion pilot, correct?"

"Yes, sir." Ritsuko looked over at Misato. "Captain?"

Misato smoothly stepped up to the screen. "There is no time to set up a proper mount for a cannon of this size; it would take weeks, months of construction work. Instead we intend to deploy a team of two Evangelion units. One to aim the gun, one to defend the position in the event that the angel returns fire despite the gunner being outside its normal engagement range." Misato reached over and tapped Ritsuko's tablet, bringing up an image of a large triangular object. "The defender will be using a heat shield from a decommissioned space shuttle, plated with all the tungsten carbide we can rivet onto it in the time we have. We… think we can guarantee a solid block of one shot, but probably no more."

"So you'll only have two chances," Gendo said quietly. It was a statement, not a question.

"Only four heavy penetrator rounds for this weapon currently exist, sir, so… that's only down by fifty percent anyway." Misato fidgeted with the end of her sleeve. "Besides, a handful of shots from that angel might conceivably be able to punch a hole through Mount Hakone itself. Even with more time on our hands we'd have little chance of building a stronger shield."

There was a tense silence in the room, stretching for more than thirty seconds. The only sound was the shuffling of feet as agitated command staff sought some relief for the nervous energy.

"Very well," the Commander said at last. "Captain Katsuragi, your performance has not failed NERV yet. You have command of Operation Yashima and full discretion of its execution."

"Sir, yes sir."

"See to it that my confidence in you is _not_ misplaced."

Misato blinked, her eyes widening. Gendo Ikari had _never_ inflected his voice in her presence before. Granted, it was subtle - only a faint stressing of a small word - but it was a lot more than she was used to.

"Sir, yes sir!"

 **X-X-X**

 **2d Lt. Langley-Soryu [0211]:** _oof, this is some serious scheiße._

 **2d Lt. Langley-Soryu [0212]:** _hate to say it, but I'm actually glad I'm not on this deployment. The baby was hard enough._

 **1st Lt. Ibuki [0212]:** _sounds like you should have stayed at Matsushiro! Then you wouldn't even be NEAR the line of fire._

 **2d Lt. Langley-Soryu [0213]:** _a. we've been over this already and b. I've been on the helicopter for like an hour already, so stuff it._

 **1st Lt. Ibuki [0213]:** _that doesn't mean I can't keep giving you shit over it. I'm part of your medical staff, so you'd better believe I'm going to needle you for needlessly delaying your recovery._

 **2d Lt. Langley-Soryu [0215]:** _oh screw you. Save it for when you can yell at me in person… better yet, save it for when there isn't a giant lego brick hanging over our heads._

 **\- 2d Lt. Langley-Soryu has signed off [0215] -**

 **#XXX69_THEREALGENDOIKARI_420 [0666]:** _guess it's just the two of us, then._

 **1st Lt. Ibuki [0217]:** _who the hell is this?!_

 **#Mysterious Stranger [9999]:** _who indeed? We may never know, Miss Ibuki!_

 **1st Lt. Ibuki [0218]:** _I suppose I needn't tell you you're trespassing in a secure channel._

 **1st Lt. Ibuki [0218]:** _you must realize NERV has the resources to track you down, though._

 **#Ghost In The Machine [6969]:** _Scary! I'm hurt. Is that how you treat all your fans, lieutenant?_

 **1st Lt. Ibuki [0219]:** _I'm sure I don't know what you mean by fans. I don't have any fans._

 **#Usernames Are For Suckers [6006]:** _you have me, for sure. But don't worry, I'm not really here to cause trouble. I just wanted to watch the briefing, and it's officers only, so I had to get creative to access the feed._

 **1st Lt. Ibuki [0220]:** _Interesting. Still unauthorized, however. The MAGI are pretty close to pinpointing your access point, by the way. I hope you don't mind being reported to Dr. Akagi._

 **#THE JIG IS UP! [X_X]:** _Aww, you'd snitch on your favorite pilot?_

 **1st Lt. Ibuki [0222]:** _ahh. So you ARE pilot Illustrious. I wasn't sure at first._

 **#username error [?]:** _dammit._

 **1st Lt. Ibuki [0224]:** _you know, I might have considered adding you to the feed if you'd just, you know, asked like a normal human being._

 **#username error [?]:** _I may be better than Asuka at thinking ahead, but I'm definitely worse at judgement calls. What can I say? My weakness is pretty women._

 **1st Lt. Ibuki [0225]:** _hmm… you know, I was going to report you for this, but perhaps we can reach a better resolution._

 **#username error [?]:** _oh, no. I don't like the sound of this._

 **1st Lt. Ibuki [0227]:** _first of all: no more complaining at medical checkups. Period._

 **#username error [?]:** _thou art a cruel mistress, but I will manage._

 **1st Lt. Ibuki [0228]:** _second… I'll think on it and get back to you._

 **1st Lt. Ibuki [0229]:** _now, away with you._

 **\- USERNAME_NOT_FOUND was kicked from channel by 1st Lt. Ibuki [0229] -**

 **X-X-X**

Dawn, Misato had long since decided, was the absolute worst time of day. It was too bright, too loud, and even in Japan's balmy post-second-impact climate it was cold. Not to mention the fact that she never, ever saw the dawn unless she'd stayed up through the previous night.

The menacing octahedral monstrosity had crested the ridge of the caldera, and its huge body cast an ominous shadow over the eastern fringes of the Tokyo-3 metro zone. Even as the firebase itself was abuzz with activity all over the lower slopes, the observation tower at the top of Mount Futago was shrouded in a tense hush.

"It has a clear shot at downtown," Misato murmured, staring intently through a set of binoculars. "Why isn't it firing?"

Ritsuko took a long drag on her cigarette, blowing the smoke out slowly and tapping the ash before answering. "Guess it wants to hit the weak spot more directly," she said simply.

Misato looked up briefly, shooting a sour look over her shoulder. "You're awfully relaxed about all this."

"I can only work myself into a terror over the impending apocalypse so many times before the jading sets in," Ritsuko replied in the same bored tone. "I could die in a few hours, or in twenty years from lung cancer; one way or another I'll end up in hell eventually."

Misato ignored the comment, returning her attention to the binoculars.

 _It's still moving. Slowly, but our window of opportunity to hit it on this side of Mount Hakone is narrow. If it decides to park behind the mountain we may have no firing angle._ She gritted her teeth. _Then again, the weak spot is right by the shore of Lake Ashi, a few meters from being underwater. If it doesn't want to shoot through quite a few buildings and defense towers, it'll have to go pretty far into the clear zone west of the mountain… and if we pulled this off right it shouldn't know we have a firebase here yet._

"I'm getting another relay delay. The superconductors are failing at one of the northern junctions." Ritsuko sighed softly. "ETA is bumping up another hour at least. 1700 hours is the new estimate."

Misato clenched a fist. "Too slow," she said, venom dripping from her tone. "Too damn slow."

"We're practically making the impossible happen, Misato," Ritsuko said softly. "The projected attack pattern is being worked in real time too. The estimated time for the angel to breach the geofront has been bumped up to 0115 tomorrow - we should have time to kill it with hours to spare."

"That's an estimate. Not a worst case."

"Worst case, we fire early. We have contingency plans, Misato."

"I…" the captain looked back, anxiously scanning for watchful eyes or alert ears, then let herself grimace. "I know, Rits, I know. I just… I suck at waiting. Doubly so when it comes to angels."

Ritsuko also looked around, then let her expression soften. "I know. It'll be okay… _captain,"_ she said, stressing the rank. "With sexism in the armed forces being what it is, you've _got_ to know how good you are to have made Ops Director of NERV before you're even thirty. And you've got the two most dependable, level-tempered pilots we have, which is perfect for a battle where they _aren't_ going to beat the angel in a barbaric melee. I believe in you."

Misato looked away, her expression still hard. "That makes one of us," she said, looking back through the binoculars. "It feels like every time a new angel appears, it throws a new curveball. I'm tired of improvising again and again."

"Hah. Well." Ritsuko stubbed out her cigarette against the concrete revetment. "Not that my work is under the same life-and-death pressure, but I definitely get _that_ sentiment."

 _Although, perhaps it is life and death to some._ Thoughts of Rei's delicate, artificially weakened AT field - and the similarly dark purpose her clone Kyū served - surfaced in the doctor's mind. _And who knows, one day the commander may tire of my passive resistance, or my inability to violate the fundamental laws of nature as hard or fast as he'd like._

"Hey, Ritsuko? You kinda spaced out there. You okay?"

"Yeah." Shaking her head, Ritsuko pulled another cigarette from the pack in her pocket. "Just been a few too many hours since I last slept, is all."

 **X-X-X**

The sun was setting over the caldera ridge, painting the cloudy sky a vibrant red. In another context, the view from Mount Futago might have been beautiful - but the skyline was somewhat marred by the enormous silhouette of the monster hovering over the city.

 _Maybe I died on the beach there, and this is actually hell._

Asuka's body was screaming with discomfort as she slowly dragged herself up the steps to the watchpoint battlements. Ghost pain from dozens of minor burns painted most of her skin - and while the bruises on her head and ribs from being knocked around her entry plug and the ache of a minor hyperflexion in her neck were somewhat less intense than the burns, they came with the knowledge that they wouldn't fade away in a matter of hours. All to say nothing of the crushing fatigue working its way through her body.

 _Then again, there'll be flashback pain later, of course. Can't forget that. Ghost pain goes, but then comes back, fuuuck…_

Finally, she pulled her feet over the last step and stood at the top of the revetment. Her casual clothes and unmoving, exhausted silence painted a sharp contrast to the dozens of uniformed figures dashing back and forth and muttering urgently to each other.

"Asuka?! What are _you_ doing here?"

Asuka looked up at the sound of Misato's voice. Her uniform and hair were unkempt, and her eyes had the sharp twitchiness of someone who'd had too little sleep and too much caffeine.

"Ca-" Asuka rasped, then coughed and cleared her throat. "Came to watch the fun," she said. "Helicopter only landed a little while ago."

"You should be in medical," Misato said firmly. "Hell, how did you even get clearance to travel? Matsushiro has a perfectly good medical facility!"

"They were airlifting Shinji to HQ for severe feedback shock treatment," Asuka replied, her voice dull with fatigue. "I insisted on coming along, and, well, the new rank pulls more weight than I thought. 'Sides, who's gonna stop a soldier keeping vigil for her squad-mate?"

Misato rolled her eyes, then fixed Asuka with a disapproving glare. "You're in no shape to be on a battlefield."

"I said I came to _watch._ Trust me, even if Moloch was in shape for it I wouldn't be asking for redeployment." Asuka stepped over to a nearby crate, then pulled herself up to sit on its edge. "See that _arschloch_ has stopped moving… can't be a good sign," she muttered.

Misato followed her line of sight to where the massive angel was hovering just above the ground at the water's edge - the thinnest point in the geofront's shell.

"It's not, not at all. See that thin line at its base? It's extending its body into some kind of drill," Misato said, crossing her arms. "It's a bit slower than directly firing its energy weapon at the weak spot, but this way it won't run any risk of injuring itself by splash damage."

Asuka cursed softly in German, running through an impressive string of expletives - most of which she hoped were beyond Misato's rough understanding of the language.

 _I wish I could be out there fighting it right now. Not that I want to die instantly, but I fucking hate waiting…_

"How soon?" She asked softly.

"As of the latest estimate? The angel will break through about thirty minutes after midnight," Misato said, drumming her fingers against the concrete revetment. "The final electrical setup keeps hitting delays, but we have the majority of the national grid all set to divert power. Operation Yashima is currently set to execute on the stroke of midnight, whether or not setup has been finished by then."

"Not a lot of error margin, huh."

"Against a monster this powerful, I'm just glad we have a plan at all," Misato said, shaking her head. She began drumming her fingers again, then stopped, catching her fingers in her other hand. "Well… get comfortable, I guess. I'm going to go find Ritsuko."

Asuka cocked her head, frowning. "Why?"

"Because at this point, I need a _fucking_ cigarette."

 **X-X-X**


	15. Lines Between Life And Death, Part 3

**X-X-X**

 _ **Chapter 15**_

 **X-X-X**

 _ **2130 hours / T minus 150 minutes**_

"Hey. Blue."

There was no response from the other pylon. The songs of cicadas, and the faint brushes of zephyrs around the towering docking pylons, were the only sounds that broke the silence of the dusk.

"Blue? Are you asleep?"

For a moment, Mari wondered if the other pilot really _had_ fallen asleep. She was an oddity in every way, and that included her machine-like ability to push through fatigue, but the pilot corps had been on alert for nearly 22 hours straight. Mari herself had taken a four-hour power nap in the late afternoon, but she'd seen no evidence that Rei had done anything similar, and even the ' _mean ultramarine piloting machine'_ had limits, surely…?

"I am awake, Pilot Illustrious."

"Good to hear." Mari smiled softly in the darkness. "You holding up okay?"

There was another stretch of silence, and Mari's smile turned into a concerned frown as the cicadas chirped on. The moonlit silhouette of the other pilot - sitting, with her torso slumped forward against her knees in an unusually relaxed position - didn't move at all.

"Blue?"

"My name is Ayanami Rei, Pilot Illustrious."

Mari chuckled softly. "Yeah. It is," she said, half to herself. "Ayanami. You holding up okay?"

Rei was quiet for another moment. However, before Mari could press further, she spoke up.

"Why do you pilot your Eva, Pilot Illustrious?"

Mari blinked, caught off-guard. On one hand, Rei's response wasn't at all an answer to her question - but on the other, this was one of the first times she'd _ever_ observed Rei breaking her pattern of total conversational alogia.

 _But, conversely, she's the commander's pet, so she could compromise me if I reveal too much._

"No single reason, I think," Mari said, carefully. "Partly because I _can;_ Baal would be no more than an expensive paperweight without me. Mostly out of duty to humanity, as one of few that have any power to fight angels… although, maybe duty to _humanity_ is the wrong way to put it. If the angels beat us, my sister dies, and she's more important to me than anything else."

 _And part of me pilots because I want answers,_ she thought, but she didn't dare risk voicing it.

"… Anyway. That's why I pilot." She looked back over at Rei. "How about you?"

Rei's head shifted, although Mari could make out no expression in the darkness. "Because that is what I am," she said eventually, her voice even quieter than usual. "It is part of the purpose I was made for."

' _Made for'? What an interesting choice of words…_ "You were born to pilot? Hell, that sounds like something Pr- err, Asuka might say."

"No." Rei's voice remained soft. "I was made to safeguard the souls of the living. That is the bond I bear."

' _I was made,' there it is again… I have a feeling that this is shit she wouldn't say, normally. I wonder if it has anything to do with how zombified she looked earlier._ Mari turned the words over in her head, trying to decide which hints were the most important. "I guess stopping aliens from wiping out humanity is one way to safeguard our souls," she said, keeping her tone as neutral as possible.

"Until the angels are all killed, yes." Rei shifted slightly. "Then… he will be able to bring my purpose to conclusion."

"Oh? And who is 'he,' then?" _As if I didn't know already… but hey, it never hurts to appear dumber than you actually are._

Rei froze. Mari watched her relaxed posture stiffen and uncurl slowly until she was sitting rigidly upright with her legs crossed. "I am not at liberty to divulge that information," Rei said, her voice firmer than before.

"If you say so," Mari replied carelessly, putting on a nonchalance that she didn't feel. "You ready for tonight? It's fucked up that you've gotta jump in front of an angel's massive laser cannon."

"You need not be afraid, pilot Illustrious. I will protect you."

Mari grinned crookedly at the other pilot's wording. "Who, me? I'm not afraid; I trust you. I asked if _you_ were ready, not if I was."

"I will perform my duties as necessary," Rei droned, without visibly moving a muscle. _Then again, the darkness makes it hard to read body language._

"Of course you will," Mari said smoothly. "But, now I've got to know. _Are_ you afraid?"

There was no answer. Mari gave another quizzical look towards the other pylon, but Rei hadn't moved. The silence stretched on, and Mari found herself wondering if a limit to Rei's stoicism even existed.

After a full minute of silence, Mari finally cracked. "Blue? Hey, you didn't really fall asleep on me, did you?"

"I am awake, Pilot Illustrious."

"Ahh." Mari nodded to herself. "Didn't feel like answering?"

Rei fell silent again, and Mari's brow furrowed. _Is she being cagey? But she was more open than I've ever seen her earlier… besides, I'd have thought someone as straightforward as she is wouldn't have any qualms with just telling me she isn't going to answer…_

"I…"

Mari's attention snapped back to the other pilot.

"I do not think… that I fully understand what it means, to be afraid," Rei said, haltingly. "I am aware of the concept, and know the academic definitions thereof, but I… I cannot say with certainty that I have ever experienced it myself."

Mari cocked an eyebrow, but then realized that Rei wasn't one to respond to expression even if she _could_ see her. "I very much doubt you've _never_ felt fear," she asserted. "Even if you don't think you're afraid, your body knows it. Your heart speeds up, you feel chills even though you're sweating, your mind blocks out anything that isn't focused on the object of the terror… it's a spinal response, not something you need to _know."_

A brief pause. Then - "I stand corrected, Pilot Illustrious. I have, indeed, experienced fear before," Rei said tonelessly. "Thank you."

"… No problem," Mari replied tentatively. _Huh, I didn't think it'd be easy to get her to admit it… but on the other hand, fuck, maybe she really just didn't fucking know what fear was. Just how deep does her machine aesthetic go?_

"And, to answer your original inquiry, no." Rei's voice didn't even have a hint of doubt. "I am not afraid of the coming mission."

Mari let out a short laugh. "Even though you're first in line to get killed? Gotta hand it to ya, Blue, you've sure got some guts."

"I am not afraid of death, Pilot Illustrious."

Mari's normally impeccably quick wit failed her, and for a moment she was left gaping wordlessly in the dim moonlight. _After literally having the concept of fear explained to her… she says she doesn't fear death. God damn._ "That's… hardcore," she managed eventually.

If Rei had intended to answer, it never came. Mari's phone buzzed sharply with an incoming text, and a glance over at Rei's platform showed the other pilot was also looking at her phone.

 **[princess]:** _You're at T minus two hours, pilots. Get in those Evas - the captain wants you in position and ready to fire by 2300 hours._

 **[princess]:** _Good luck._

An almost inaudible sound drew Mari's attention, and she looked up from her phone briefly. _Could have sworn she just repeated 'luck…' weird._ She stood up.

"Hey, Rei?" She called back as she walked towards the boarding catwalk. "Try not to die, yeah?"

 **X-X-X**

 _ **2330 hours / T minus 30 minutes**_

"It's broken through the second-last armor layer!"

Asuka looked over the impromptu control room - really a bunch of portable terminals set up under an awning - and nursed her third cup of coffee. Fatigue weighed her down like leaden cuffs on her limbs, yet she found herself too restless to sit still; the stress itch constantly prompted her to bounce her leg and fidget with her hands.

 _Probably just the caffeine. Yeah._

Abruptly, she stood, and strode over to the bank of communications terminals. There weren't many inactive ones, but a few stood idle; after a few minutes of fiddling with the software, Asuka had a similar communicator to her Evangelion's. Although it was irritatingly lacking in a direct cerebrospinal interface, it wasn't _too_ difficult for her to manage.

"Hey. Four Eyes."

" _Princess? You're up on the watchpoint? It's fucking dangerous up there! We don't know how the Angel's shots will splash -"_

"If it's not too dangerous to risk the captain, then it's not too dangerous to risk me," Asuka snapped, immediately regretting her harsh tone. "Besides…" she continued, much more softly. "You're risking your life too, Four Eyes. What're sisters without solidarity?"

" _Can't argue with that. I know I'd do the same if it was you down here with the huge railgun,"_ Mari said. " _You know they couldn't even build much of a gunstock in time? I'm just glad there's an electronic firing trigger - I can't imagine how unwieldy it'd be to try and fire this thing with an Eva's hands."_

Asuka scoffed. "What do you want? They had barely a few hours to make it work."

" _Yeah, yeah, I know, but it's still annoying."_ Mari was quiet for a moment. " _Really, though, you should be calling Blue instead of me."_

Asuka furrowed her brow. "What, _Rei?"_ She said, almost as if delivering a profanity. "Why would I… _verdammt._ What's wrong with her?"

" _What, apart from the fact that she's probably about to step in front of an alien Kaiju's death ray?"_ Mari raised an eyebrow. " _Well… I don't know, exactly. But she's far from top form. She was like a zombie earlier."_

Once again, thoughts of the arrayed pill bottles on Rei's dresser flashed through Asuka's mind. "Fuck. She's been like that for a while… I think I know why, too. Rather not discuss it here and now, though." She shook her head. "She better not die out there. Not after all this."

" _Aww, it's sweet that you care so much,"_ Mari said, leaving Asuka briefly sputtering like a beached fish. " _I told her as much when we were boarding. Doubt she took it to heart, though."_

"Probably not. I told her the same fucking thing when we deployed against the fifth angel, and she sort of obeyed then, but only because she thought it was an order."

" _Heh, that doesn't surprise me. She sure does seem to like taking orders."_ Mari's smirk widened, and she winked devilishly. " _You should remember that, princess. Might come in handy, if you catch my drift."_

Asuka recoiled. " _Was zur hölle,_ Four Eyes?! What do you even _mean -"_

" _Oh, I'm sure you'll figure it out eventually,"_ Mari said, sobering abruptly. " _Hey, I gotta go. We're on the wire now, and the techs need me to help pre-calibrate the aim assist for this monster."_

"I - yeah. Okay." Asuka bit the inside of her lip, fighting the urge to draw blood. "You do that, Four Eyes. You'd better not die out there, you hear?"

" _Wouldn't dream of it."_

 **X-X-X**

 _ **2358 hours / T minus 120 seconds**_

" _Primary Capacitor Banks at 98% charge. Stand by…"_

The two monstrous war machines cut lonely figures against the bare concrete of the firebase bunker. One lay prone and ready to fire its unwieldy longarm, its four legs splayed out in an X formation for stability; while the other was crouched and primed to move its shield into place.

 _This body is 10.55 years old and its heart has beat 443,707,724 times._

 _This body is 10.54 years old and its heart has beat 423,577,312 times. This body's mean age is 12.4 years and it has no heart, only a core filled with light and fury._

All debris had been cleared from around them - their only connection to the world outside their firebase was the cryogenically cooled power line linking the big gun to the immense spiderweb of electrical relays behind Mount Futago.

 _It almost time._

Rei gazed impassively at the distant octahedron, tuning out the incessant chatter of the technical staff on the comms.

 _If you die here, will you be allowed to remain in oblivion?_

Rei blinked slowly, but her expression remained otherwise neutral. The insidious whisper was uncommon, but not entirely new to her.

"I have been instructed not to die," she murmured back, too quietly for the comms to pick up.

 _Pilot Illustrious is not your superior. Why would you follow her orders?_

"I have been ordered to protect her in a specific fashion," Rei reasoned. "I will only die if the shield is weaker than Doctor Akagi expects."

 _But you want it, don't you? You want it just like I did, and just like the other one did. Only one of us was ever fulfilled. Why should she be the only one to rest? You could end us both, here and now!_

Hyuga's comm crackled. " _Banks at 99% charge! T minus sixty seconds!"_

 _Let me do it. Just let go. I'll jump in front of that beam, shield down, and end us both. I've waited so long here, with nothing but a broken promise to hold on to - would you torment me like they do?!_

Rei blinked. The prospect _was_ tempting - perhaps the only reward with a fighting chance at overruling the Commander's will. She would suffer no punishment, not even disappointment, if she died. Another Rei - utterly indistinguishable but for serial number, even to herself - would be born to replace her. This incarnation, this _fraction_ of her greater whole, could return to the darkness to sleep alongside her second self.

 _And really, who would miss you? No one will see a difference between Three and Four; in many ways there won't even be one. Only Dr. Akagi and the Commander will know, and why would they care?_

Rei blinked, an image floating to the surface of her mind - a flash of shimmering, fiery hair, Scarlet neoprene, and sapphire irises looking out from narrowed and angry eyes. " _Just try not to die, okay?!"_

 _She had no authority to order you!_

"But she does now," Rei said softly. "And she has not indicated that her wishes have changed."

 _I am not convinced._

Rei's brow twitched in a barely perceptible frown. "You and I are the same being. Surely, you must understand my reasoning."

 _Not anymore. You and Two are, perhaps. Even now she does not truly rest; many pieces of her became pieces of you. But I am no longer Rei. I am no one. If anyone, I am Asherah now._

Rei often found people hard to understand. But, apart from recent anomalous distractions, Rei knew _Rei's_ thought processes well - even the instance of her that had become the bitter, mindlessly destructive spirit that drove Unit 00's actions. She had experienced a conversation like this before, and had been crippled during the battle with Sachiel because of it. She could not afford another incident while on active deployment.

 _We knew the German pilot existed since we were not five years into humanoid existence. Why would she suddenly be important now? Only the Commander is important, and we - no, I - cannot serve even_ _ **him**_ _as I used to. Not after he betrayed me like this, imprisoning me in his monster instead of letting me_ _ **die!**_

The boiling fury was rising in Unit 00's core. Rei winced at the sensation; it perplexed and unsettled her that a being which had once been _part of her_ could become so… alien. Rei barely felt anything at all, perceiving vestiges of her emotion more as transient mental twitches than anything else, like dying fireflies in the night. By contrast, One's fits of all-consuming rage might be better compared to a firing arc furnace, practically defining her entire being. Dr. Akagi had theorized that Unit 00's instability might have been an artifact of implanting a piece of Lilith's soul inside a vessel of Adam's flesh - however, for once, the good doctor was wrong. Unit 00 was unstable for a much simpler reason: the soul of One had been betrayed by the only human she had truly trusted, and then had been interred in the torturous dark void of a flesh-golem warmachine and left to rot. _Such treatment would drive anyone to madness. Mania and excessive aggression are not even the worst psychiatric symptoms one might expect._

"I will not die today, One. I am sorry my reasoning does not satisfy you."

 _How dare you command me! Have I not suffered enough?_ At the edges of her perception, Rei felt the burning tingle in the uplink subsystem that indicated the diodes were approaching overload stress. _Why should I not take what should have been mine long ago?!_

The last line was accompanied by a sudden, vicious burst of feedback. If Rei hadn't expected something like it, she would have been caught off-guard in the berserker impulse. However, she had been expecting One to snap at her almost since their impromptu conversation began - and as soon as she felt the attack, she closed her AT field.

The funny thing about synchronization with an Evangelion is that it is inherently founded on a connection between two souls. In unfortunate circumstances, this allows the Evangelion to at least briefly overpower her human pilot's will with an overload of impassioned emotion, taking control of the binary system into their own hands. However, the this also means that a quick-witted pilot can head off such a takeover by deliberately desynchronizing, completely disabling the temperamental beast.

Rei had never been much good at synchronization above a basic function threshold. To part of her soul, it would always feel _wrong_ \- the soul of Lilith was never meant to mesh neatly with the flesh of Adam. However, by the same token, she was practically _built_ to rapidly desync.

 _Keep lying to yourself, then. I see you, Three!_ One hissed, her voice growing weaker as their souls were forcibly pulled apart. _I see you!_

Rei cocked her head at the parting statement, but she didn't get a chance to reflect on it. She rebooted the link circuit, logging the unexpected shutdown as a recalibration measure, and re-engaged her synchronization. This time, the lurking darkness was quiet; One was either sleeping once more, or biding her time.

" _Asherah?"_ It was Mari's voice. " _Did you just reinitialize your subsystems?"_

"Apologies, Pilot Illustrious. A motor nerve required recalibration. The error is resolved."

Mari said _something_ in reply, because her lips visibly moved. However, Rei didn't register it. A lance of pain stabbed through her skull, overriding all other stimulus, and a moment later she felt the crushing pressure of an AT shockwave coming from the angel.

" _Capacitors are hot!"_ It was Misato's voice, this time. " _Fire!"_

There was a brilliant flash, and Rei's world went silent. It took her a moment to even realize that the report from the positron rifle must have been loud enough to cause temporary hearing loss; she was too focused on the angel to pay it any mind. At the same moment as Mari fired the gigantic railgun, the Angel's body opened along its edges like some kind of hellish flower and fired a return shot.

The glittering tracer trail of plasma wobbled and coiled into a helix as it brushed within a scant few feet of the AT energy ray. Both shots twisted and went wide of their mark, the railgun round slamming into the far side of the caldera ridge and the ray splashing harmlessly over the lower slopes of Mount Futago. Rei felt nothing, situated safely inside a few hundred tons of hyperdiamond armor, but she noted that activity on the comm display indicated the watchpoint had been hit with a minor blast wave.

" _Cycle the fuses!"_ Misato yelled over the wind, holding her hat on with one hand. " _Fire a second volley as soon as the barrel is ready!"_

Rei could already tell it wasn't going to be fast enough. The feeling of pressure was building again; slower this time, but the angel would surely fire before the cryogenic system cooled the railgun back to its subarctic operant temperatures. She hefted the titanic shield, steeling herself for the inevitable pain.

 _Last chance,_ came the insidious whisper. _It doesn't have to hurt at all, if you don't want it to._

" _Energy buildup detected in the target!"_

" _No! Dammit, the gun's not ready!"_

The Angel's facets began to open again, and Rei moved, shifting the shield up in front of her as she stepped between Unit 05 and the Angel.

The beam slammed into the shield with a dull roar. Rei had expected a much louder sound, but it seemed that the lion's share of concussive force was splashing out around the edges of the shield instead of reverberating towards her. Even the pressure - comparable to a mighty river crashing into the terrifyingly flimsy space shuttle hull - wasn't nearly unbearable.

Far, _far_ worse was the heat. Rei dimly remembered an activation test where Unit 00 had gone berserk, ramping her internal reactor to red-line almost immediately: the roaring inferno of the AT ray was already mounting the same level of pain, even though a double-strength dose of drug induced numbness. In the space of a scant second, the once-cool LCL began boiling her alive and the control yokes started to soften the neoprene of her plugsuit gloves. Black and red streaks colored the edges of her vision, creeping inexorably inwards.

Her grip began to falter as the metal of the shield slowly but surely deformed. Unit 00's armored fingers began to sink into the glowing handholds, and the center of the shield distended towards her.

Rei's last memory was a tiny, barely detectable swell of pride in her own endurance as the pressure of the ray finally dropped off. Unit 00 staggered forward, suddenly unbalanced - and crashed into the parapet as her pilot blacked out.

 **X-X-X**

Asuka didn't stay to hear the countdown. As soon as the Angel's AT attack dropped she was headed for the steps down to the firebase, heedless of the officers from the Section 2 security cordon yelling after her about how it wasn't safe.

 _Verdammt, verdammt, verdammt! She had better not be dead. She's not fucking allowed to die. I ordered her not to -_

She'd just reached one of the landings of the stairs when Mari fired the big gun a second time. The sound was so loud it instantly disoriented her, sending her physically reeling for a moment -

\- and if the railgun's report hadn't deafened her, the _scream_ would have. The Angel split its facets again, morphing in the blink of an eye into a hellish starburst of radial crystals, and its unearthly shriek echoed clear around the caldera. Asuka watched, dumbstruck, as the monstrosity began to crumble into smaller fragments of the strange blue material. Each new crack spurted with weakening jets of blue blood.

 _Mari hit home this time. It sure as hell looks dead now._

Asuka blinked, coming back to herself.

 _Big fucking deal. Good for her, sure, but right now I've got another fucking pilot down!_

The climb down became increasingly arduous as the ambient temperature began to rise. The discharge vents on the refrigeration units were dumping heat at full blast, adding to the blistering hot air around the shield zone. The shield itself and a great deal of the concrete and earthen parapet around it were still glowing and glassy. Asuka found herself grateful that she'd neglected to remove her plugsuit after crawling out of Unit 02 at Matsushiro - despite the discomfort of wearing the strange pseudo-neoprene for an extended period, the suits were built with surprisingly advanced environmental regulation systems.

 _Probably something to do with the fact our entry plugs perch just above high temperature nuclear reactors,_ Asuka mused sourly, picking her way over the cracked and hissing concrete to where Unit 00's ejected entry plug lay.

She punched the _EMERGENCY: Flush LCL_ button, wincing as a brief flash of pain shot through her knuckles. Orange fluid gushed from the emergency valves, hot enough for the jets to release large clouds of steam even in the warm night air.

Asuka looked at the back of her hand, noting with some detachment the small spots on the contact patches where the neoprene had rapidly melted and recooled. _Scheisse, the internal temperature better be colder than the shell, or she's already dead!_

The external hatch handles had popped out as soon as the entry plug had ejected. Asuka braced herself for the pain, grabbed them with both hands, and twisted.

" _Hurensohn!"_

Even through the plugsuit gloves, it was worse than she expected. Searing pain stabbed into her palms, followed by a constant, sharp burn as the melted rubber glued itself to her blistered skin. She let out a strangled cry of adrenaline and pain as she threw her shoulders into the movement one more time, finally shifting the handles and levering the hatch open.

Rei was slumped forward over the control column, unmoving; she would have fallen onto the plug's floor, but for the grotesque spiderweb of cables holding her in place. Each line plugged into a different port on her plugsuit and led back to the aft or ceiling of the entry plug.

Asuka ducked through the hatch, wincing at the oven-like heat. While unlikely to _still_ be life-threatening, it was extremely uncomfortable; she'd probably have hesitated longer if she hadn't already been covered in sweat and grime.

"Blue?" She said, her voice tense as she stepped up to the unresponsive pilot. " _Gottverdammt,_ Rei, you're not allowed to die! Remember? You're under orders, _verdammt…"_

Stepping around in front of her, Asuka checked the other pilot's neck; her pulse was weak, but at least it was _there._ Her breathing was shallow and ragged, and Asuka guess she hadn't had a chance to purge residual LCL from her lungs.

 _Scheisse, she's unconscious. I've got to get her to triage…_

The cable at the base of Rei's neck seemed to have a grip clasp, unlike the others, which connected via some arcane means beyond Asuka's understanding. Gritting her teeth from the pain in her burned fingers, she squeezed the clasp, and the neck cable popped out of its socket - then, a second later, every other cable followed suit. Asuka, unprepared for the cables to suddenly drop their load, found herself flat on her back in a puddle of warm LCL with Rei's limp form atop her.

 _Déjà vu…_

Asuka unceremoniously shoved Rei off her and stood up, hauling the girl up with her by one arm. With some effort - fortunately for her, mostly the same kind of effort one learns to accept in _Bundeswehr_ boot camp - she had the other pilot's arm over her shoulders, supporting her as well as she could.

 **X-X-X**

 _This body is 10.55 years old and its heart has beat 443,709,073 times._

With some effort, Rei managed to force her eyes open. Her pervasive, constant numbness gave way to faint sensation, and she realized she was being carried. Her arm was slung over the other person's shoulders, and her feet were dragging slightly - her benefactor couldn't be much taller than her, and was therefore almost certainly another pilot. The sure steps and strong posture of the other party indicated one probability above the other.

The fuzzy smears of light and color sharpened as her eyes finally focused. Her head was hanging, but she could still see a pair of legs clad in scarlet plugsuit material.

 _Why would Lieutenant Langley-Soryu be assisting me? She should be recovering at Matsushiro. Her presence at Mount Futago was not necessary._

Rei went to speak. However, she didn't manage more than a mumbled "Lieutenant - ?" Before a fit of coughing took her. She stumbled, falling to her knees; only the sturdy support of Asuka's shoulder stopped her from falling flat in her face.

Although she knew what the phenomenon _was,_ coughing was an uncommon experience for Rei. Even during her frequent bouts of viral illness, the anaesthetic properties of the medications she took suppressed the reflex, and a brief breathing exercise usually got most of the LCL out of her lungs whenever she was in a draining entry plug. This time, she had passed out before it drained - and her lungs were thus still full of stale liquid.

It took nearly a minute for the hacking and dry heaves to stop shaking her frame, leaving only a pool of brackish orange goo on the concrete pavement. Dimly, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Asuka grimacing and looking away. Despite the German's apparent disgust, however, she held Rei's arm with unwavering support.

"Can you walk? You can -" Asuka cut herself off, biting down on her own speech in that gritted-teeth manner she so often used when the words were hard for her to say. "You can lean on me. Don't worry about it."

It took another moment for Rei to calm her breathing, and she didn't move to stand.

"Why… why do you assist me?" She asked, her voice still scratchy and rough.

Asuka looked so offended that the force of her glare alone might have withered Rei where she lay. "You think I was going to just _leave_ you?! What kind of - I'm your _squad leader, dummkopf!_ I'm supposed to _fucking_ look out for -" her voice broke, and she sucked in a deep breath before she continued in a more measured tone. "I'm supposed to look out for you. That's what a good leader does. You're _my_ pilots, and none of you are allowed to die on my watch, you hear? Not even you, Blue."

 _Her sentiment almost makes sense, in the context of a classic military mindset. However, leader and subordinate dynamics developed to organize people. There is no need for them to apply when the subject is not a person._

"I do not understand," Rei replied tonelessly. "Measured against the other pilots, my death would mean nothing. I-"

"Don't you _dare_ say that."

Rei wasn't unaccustomed to Asuka cutting her off, but she'd never heard an edge quite as sharp as this one in the other pilot's tone.

"I mean it. Don't even _think_ that - I know you are, I can see you winding up to talk about how replaceable you are. Well, you're not a _machine,_ Rei. And I don't know who hurt you but you are _not_ replaceable - is that clear?"

 _No, it is not clear at all. 'Eyes as limited as yours,' that is what One said. If anything, too weak a descriptor. Rei is not a person. Rei will always be replaceable, because only her flesh dies, her mind living on in the next, her soul still nailed to the cross in the deepest and darkest cavern. Not only am I replaceable, I am already a replacement._

It pained her that she could not explain the truth of her existence to Asuka. Still, her standing orders from Commander Ikari kept her lips sealed on that subject.

"I am… sorry," she said eventually. "I do not know how to respond, at times like these."

Asuka's glower melted, her signature crooked smirk taking its place. She secured Rei's arm over her shoulder once more. "I'm not your _mom,_ Rei. I'm not going to tell you what you should feel." She stood, slowly, lifting Rei almost as if she were weightless. "But _I'm_ glad you're alive, even if you don't give a fuck yourself. I don't want you do die. Keep that in mind next time you tell me I should leave you in the dust, yeah?"

 _Why would she be glad that I am alive?_

The thought seemed irrational to her. Still, Rei was used to orders based on motives she did not understand.

 _Even if it makes little sense, I suppose it is not beyond plausibility that someone might value my contiguous existence. Especially if that person is not privy to my true nature._

She twitched the corners of her mouth upwards, experimentally. "I will remember, Lieutenant."

 _I have observed smiles to have placating effects on others. However, Lieutenant Langley-Soryu is not easily placated…_

Asuka, however, offered no comment. She didn't move to continue their journey, either, instead lingering on the spot as she stared at Rei with a faint flush to her cheeks.

"Is something the matter, Lieutenant?"

Apparently coming back to herself, Asuka blinked, then coughed nervously. "Nothing!" she said hastily, almost tripping over herself. "A-Anyway, let's get you up to the triage tent at the top of the hill, shall we?"

 _What an unusual reaction. Certainly not what I would have expected from merely smiling at her._ It made little sense to her, but she tucked away in a mental filing cabinet for later assessment. For some reason it seemed to make her pulse quicken slightly, and it was rare for her to find anything less than direct injury that could elicit a physiological reaction from her.

Asuka resolutely refrained from looking at Rei through the whole journey up the small mountain. Still, Rei decided to let the smile stand. _After all, it cannot hurt to learn how to better affect the appearance of emotions at will. The smile seems to elicit an unusually strong response from her - it will be a good place to start._

 **X-X-X**


	16. In the Shadow of an Angel's Wingspan

**X-X-X**

 _ **Chapter 16**_

 **X-X-X**

"Well, it's a good thing I already have a college degree."

Pain can be easy to ignore in the moment. However, as Asuka was quickly learning, it turns out that scalding one's hands often comes with longer-term consequences.

Shinji looked up from his bento to see Asuka holding a fork between her index and middle fingers. They were the two fingers on her right hand that weren't so heavily bandaged as to be taped together, but they were still shrouded in enough protective wrapping to make bending them difficult and painful.

"Oh - gosh, I didn't think to make food that would be easy to eat. Do you -"

"Psh, the food is fine. Unlike the arcane contraptions you call 'chopsticks,' I can use a _fork_ well enough." Asuka's tone was dry. "No way I can take notes in class, though. Writing takes a bit more dexterity."

Shinji cocked his head. "I could take notes for you."

"Mm… no, you really couldn't. I know I _speak_ Japanese just fine, but my ability to read Kanji would probably embarrass your primary schoolers. I don't take all my notes in German just for _fun,_ you know."

"Oh." Shinji looked crestfallen. "I… I guess that rules out any other students too, huh."

"Not unless you know any other German speakers, no." Asuka pivoted in her seat, leaning over the back of the chair to look over the rest of the classroom. "Oi! Anyone else here know how to write in German?" She yelled, her tone dripping with sarcasm. "Anyone?"

She was met with a sea of blank stares. _Yeah, I didn't think so. Who'd have guessed._ Her mouth twisted into a smirk.

"Yes."

 _Was… zur hölle?!_ For a moment, Asuka tried not to acknowledge the person that had spoken, but the soft tone was impossible to mistake. _No way. Why the fuck would_ _she_ _of all people be the single human being in my class - hell, probably my entire school - who knows German?_

The silence in the classroom was palpable. All eyes were on the two pilots, as Asuka stared incredulously and Rei gazed back with her eternally blank expression.

 _Fuck, I didn't expect to be called on that… now I gotta see it or fold, and I don't fucking fold to anyone._

"Well, get on over here, then," Asuka said, her tone sharp.

Rei stood without a word, gathering the pitifully small number of things on her desk together, and made her way over to the empty desk beside Asuka. Another student had used that desk before, but they'd been killed when Sachiel attacked Tokyo-3.

 _Or was it that their family moved away? Can't remember. Could be either. No one who doesn't have to live here would stay._

Asuka's eyes widened as Rei pushed the desk towards her own until their edges touched. Sure, it was an obvious step towards making it easier for Asuka to read her transcripts, but it was more unprompted initiative than Rei usually displayed.

The teacher walked back in. Rei opened a notebook, apparently chosen at random; Asuka frowned slightly when she saw that the first page - and therefore, probably all other pages - was blank.

 _Of course she doesn't take notes. Why would she need to learn anything in school? The commander tells her how to live in every way; I bet those notebooks only exist to make a show of normalcy._

The teacher began his lecture. Rei quickly scratched ' _Lt. Soryu: Aufzeichnungen'_ at the top of the page, then continued jotting down the lecture in almost absurd detail, apparently translating every word as quickly as the teacher said it.

Her German was not quite _perfect._ There were occasional errors and artifacts that clearly indicated it was a second language, and an unpracticed one at that. But it was more than comprehensible, and _impressively_ clear given the speed at which Rei was translating and transcribing.

As the teacher droned on, Asuka tuned out most of what he was saying, listening with half an ear at best. This wasn't too unusual, especially in her interminably boring history class. However, now instead of just mindlessly dissociating the time away, she found that she had something to pay close attention to.

Rei had always sat behind Asuka, up until this point, and never - or at least, almost never - took notes of her own. Thus, although she'd only just now realized it, Asuka had never actually _seen_ Rei writing before. Her script was a bland block print, and so consistent one might be forgiven for thinking it was produced by a printer, but that wasn't what caught Asuka's attention.

 _Gott, I wish my hands were that pretty…_

Asuka blinked, shaking her head. _Jealousy?! Really, Asuka? Over that doll? You must be losing it. She may have earned the respect due a competent pilot, but… really, what could one possibly envy about her?!_

Still, her gaze was drawn back to Rei's hands. And they _were_ pretty - delicate, precise and controlled, just like their owner. Their constant measured movement as Rei continued writing was almost hypnotic.

 _I wonder if they're as soft as they look. I'd have to hold them to know._

Asuka ripped her gaze from Rei's enchanting handwriting, stamping the thought out of her mind with bitter determination.

 _You must be fucking losing it, Asuka. Daydreaming over a pretty girl's pretty hands? Fuck, I'll admit it, Rei's pretty._ Asuka's mind briefly drifted back to the smile she had seen on Rei's lips - the only smile she'd ever seen from the other girl, at the firebase below Mount Futago. _At least, when she isn't wearing that 'dead inside' expression, anyway. But recognizing another girl as attractive is one thing; dwelling on it is quite another. You're not_ _gay_ _, are you?_

If Rei noticed the fact that Asuka's eye was twitching near-constantly for the rest of the class, she gave no indication.

 **X-X-X**

 _This is fucking killing me. Yep, this is definitely how I die. Forget alien kaiju, I'll choke on my own blood after biting my tongue too hard._

Mari absolutely hated keeping quiet. Her chattering, goofy demeanor was a vital aspect of her cover as a double agent: people invariably expected spies to be recalcitrant, and when she constantly overshared _most_ aspects of her life, suspicion slid off her like so much water.

Quiet didn't come naturally to her at all.

"There, that wasn't so bad, was it?"

Mari put on an overly exaggerated grimace, resolutely keeping her mouth closed. Maya, in turn, gave her an unamused look.

"You know, I said no _complaining,_ not that you had to go completely incommunicado."

Mari rolled her eyes. "You might as well have! I only have two topics of conversation in these checkups, griping and flirting. You vetoed option A, and fuck, I'm not _quite_ enough of a jerk to keep it up at someone who's clearly not interested."

Maya raised her eyebrows, scribbling something on her clipboard. "Oh?" She murmured, her voice much softer than its usual stern, medical tone.

"Don't you 'oh?' at me. I'm a jerk, not a _creep._ God."

Maya laughed - and not the unkind chuckle she usually reserved for Mari's discomfort, either.

 _God damn, she has a pretty laugh. Fuck's sake, what's a girl to do…_

"That wasn't what I was surprised at," Maya said, sounding amused. "I just didn't realize your interest was _genuine._ No offense, but you gave off the vibe that you'd hit on anything in a skirt."

Mari frowned. "Well _excuse_ me. You're not exactly wrong, mind you, but I would have kept it at friendly flirting if I wasn't serious. I backed off because I didn't want to… push you by going too far, I guess."

Flipping a page over in her clipboard, Maya raised her eyebrow. "So I was supposed to ascertain your interest by your cessation of pursuit? I hope even _you_ see why that might be a little backwards." She looked up briefly, meeting the British pilot's eyes. "Also, nice to know you _are_ interested. That changes things somewhat."

"I…" Mari actually _blushed,_ looking away. "All I can say in my defense is that I was mostly raised by Kaji."

"Well, that _would_ explain an inability to behave normally around women." The corner of Maya's mouth quirked upwards in a tiny smirk.

 _God damn. I thought_ _I_ _had game, but she's got me wrapped right around her finger, doesn't she? Curse my weakness for the clever ones…_

"So, miss Illustrious, care to ask me out properly?" Maya's smirk widened just a touch, though her voice was still entirely professional. "I assume even you uncouth English have _some_ notion of how to treat a lady."

Mari couldn't stop herself from breaking into a wry grin. "Wow. I thought cultural slurs were more of a third-date kind of thing."

"What can I say? Your little sister has an infectious attitude."

"She does, doesn't she." Mari's smile was a little more genuine this time. "That's… sweet of you, calling her my sister. Most people hesitate on that, since we're not related by blood."

"Blood isn't everything." Maya unclipped the paper from her clipboard and stuck it in a folder on her desk. "My parents haven't spoken to me since I came out as gay. I know that found family can be more important."

"Ain't that the truth." Mari stood up. "Well… okay then. First Lieutenant Ibuki Maya, it is my intention to court you as a _lady_ should. Would you care to accompany me on, dare I say, a date? You'll have to pick the place, though. I've barely lived here long enough to know my own commute to NERV."

Maya raised an eyebrow, although her amused smile belied any attempt to appear truly annoyed. "Well, how could I possibly turn down a proposition as chivalrous as that?" She swiveled her chair to face her computer, rapidly typing out a sequence of keys; a second later, the printer began to whirr. "Does this weekend work for you?"

The British pilot blinked. "Uh… yeah, that's perfect."

"Good. I'll get back to you to decide on the time." Maya lifted the sheet of paper from the printer and handed it to Mari. "Here is your visit and checkup summary. Now get out of my office, I'm busy."

Mari nodded sharply. "Yes ma'am."

 **X-X-X**

It was only much later that Mari would receive a text from the busy lieutenant.

 **[1st Lt. Ibuki]:** _I'll be free Sunday after my shift. Does that work for you?_

 **[Warrant Officer Illustrious]:** _Angels permitting, sure. I barely do anything most days, except sync tests sometimes, and the occasional life-or-death battle for the sake of the human race._

 _And investigate the cancer in the heart of NERV,_ Mari thought sourly, although she wasn't foolish enough to type it out. Still, it inspired her towards a more oblique tactic.

 **[Warrant Officer Illustrious]:** _I'm surprised a woman with such upstanding standards would agree to a date with a woman as young-looking as me, frankly._

 **[Warrant Officer Illustrious]:** _I'd question the whole "officer and subordinate" thing, but I don't think you actually have direct command of me._

 **[1st Lt. Ibuki]:** _I have access to your medical records. I know exactly how old you are. Besides, I can personally attest that looking 17 at 21 isn't all it's cracked up to be._

"And it doesn't exactly help to know you're going to look like a seventeen year old _forever,"_ Mari murmured.

 **[1st Lt. Ibuki]:** _and… suffice to say that there's a lot you can get away with, working at NERV. But we can talk more on that later._

Mari narrowed her eyes at her phone. _Now,_ _that_ _sounds like 'let's not discuss this on channels that can be a monitored' to me. Curious. Perhaps Miss Ibuki knows more of NERV's corruption than she lets on._

 **[Warrant Officer Illustrious]:** _well, guess I'll see you then._

 **[1st Lt. Ibuki]:** _you'll see me sooner than that._

 **[1st Lt. Ibuki]:** _do try not to be late to your next sync test. It's not as easy to set those up as it looks!_

 **X-X-X**

Ritsuko narrowed her eyes.

 _Kyū's cognitive capacities seem to be maturing much faster than I anticipated. While some of this may be accounted for by the absence of sedative narcotics in her system, it cannot completely explain her burst of growth._

Although she referred to the creature as ' _the Rei backup'_ in all _official_ reports, she couldn't bring herself to do the same in her personal logbook. Not in light of the fact that rather than the comatose, braindead shell that was intended, Kyū was fast becoming an actual living thing - both alive and aware.

 _Even though she was only exposed to the dummy plug data a few days ago, she stays awake about as long as one would expect a six year old. While she's not very physically active - her motor functions seem to be maturing slower - she is clearly alert when awake, and she visually focuses on any movement or change in the environment. Her plug's window doesn't offer a large arc of vision, but a few tests with this very pencil demonstrated a clear proclivity for following moving objects with her eyes._

Ritsuko put the pencil down and raised her head, looking over to the very window in question. Kyū was asleep, after having watched Ritsuko for half the day and a while into the night. But the good doctor was focused on quite another behavior.

She'd noticed, only a few minutes ago, that Kyū wasn't lying perfectly and serenely still. Every so often her breathing would speed up, or she'd twitch a little.

 _Oh, and I haven't had a chance to run an electroencephalograph yet, but observation suggests that she dreams._

 _The dummy plug data was supposed to pass through her without leaving a mark, but it seems that it only takes a small spark to trigger the development of a mind. So far, Kyū's growth has not interfered with dummy plug synchronicity, but once she begins forming an identity of her own I expect it will._

 _It is too early to ascertain if she is actually retaining Rei data within herself or not. The dummy plug battle matrix, while detailed, is heavily stripped down from the complete Guf backup; and Kyū is only indirectly exposed during dummy plug testing - again, the rapture uplink is designed to read data, not write it._

Sighing, Ritsuko put down her pencil.

In her first experiment with a blank Rei backup in the dummy plug system, it seemed she had inadvertently created something unique - not exactly a Rei clone, but not exactly _not_ a Rei clone.

 _An anomaly. An imperfect replica, a faulty unit._ She dug a cigarette out of her pocket and sparked it up without a second thought. _Really, I should have reported this and disposed of her immediately. She's just a liability! Better to put her down now, before she becomes a real, thinking person. It would win back some of the commander's trust in me, and I'd be spared the distraction of -_

Ritsuko almost bit through the cigarette filter as she realized her right hand had already drifted to the .357 Ruger SP101 she kept hidden under her lab coat. She forced herself to stop that train of thought in its tracks, no matter how easily it seemed to come to mind.

"You'd really do it, huh, Ritsuko?" She murmured under her breath. "Mother would be so proud…"

She left the gun in its holster, instead pinching the cigarette between shaky fingers and sucking it like her life depended on her nicotine intake. When it was burned about two-thirds down, she angrily stubbed it out on the bare desk, leaving it where it lay.

 _It's_ _my_ _secret lab. I'll leave it as messy as I please._

She regarded the sleeping child in the entry plug for a minute longer, then closed the notebook, tucking it into one of the more innocuous pockets on her lab coat. It was an archaic way of logging information, sure - but even as the head computer administrator of NERV, Ritsuko didn't entirely trust Gendo not to watch her digital movements, and she was never quite sure how independently the MAGI were allowed to think in any case. It was better this way, a secret she could _know_ was inaccessible to prying eyes. _Can't hack paper, no matter how good you are._

Taking a last look around the lab, Ritsuko careful regarded a few of the installations.

 _Been two days since I swept for bugs. Too long. Better sweep again tomorrow… can't let myself get complacent._

She turned, walking out of the lab. The automatic door hissed shut behind her, and the lights flicked off.

 **X-X-X**

Somewhere in Tokyo-3 - somewhere very deliberately nonspecific - there was a vacant apartment. The apartments above, below and to either side were also vacant; although there were tenants in the _building,_ there was little risk of any hypothetical goings-on in this apartment being overheard. This made it a perfect kind of place for a certain _kind_ of goings-on.

Of course, no amount of subterfuge and secrecy would ever stop Mari from slamming doors like she had a grudge against them.

" _Fuck,"_ she growled, dropping her bag and flopping into the nearest folding chair. "You have _no idea_ how hard it is to give Section Two the slip without looking like you're doing it deliberately."

"Well, no, not Section Two _specifically,"_ replied the room's other occupant - one Ryoji Kaji. "But I think I might have _some_ idea of what it's like to throw a tail."

"Blah, blah, blah, look at me, I'm a career spy and I'm so much more experienced than this young English whipper-snapper," Mari sing-songed, rolling her eyes. "I finally managed to smuggle my non-NERV phone out of the geofront. Do you want these photos or not?"

"Oh, do I ever. I've been just itching for them. How did you get the phone past the smart scanners?"

Mari dug the phone out of her backpack, tossing it to Kaji. "Don't ask questions you aren't prepared to know the answer to."

Kaji regarded the phone in his hands with some trepidation, then looked back up at Mari. "... should I be concerned?"

"What?" Mari laughed at his suspicious look. "Nah, I'm just yanking your chain. I wrapped the phone in my plugsuit and told them I was taking it home to mod it. Technically not allowed, but the gate guards are just grunts; I just had to talk fast and act like I owned the place to get through. And, well… it's a plugsuit."

"Which are diamagnetic and radiation-shielded. Clever."

"Yup. Even the MAGI-powered smart scanner just saw a ball of opaque neoprene." Mari grinned. "Even if Section Two gets suspicious and sniffs out my trail, they'll be thinking I've done something to the plugsuit, when it was really just a vector."

Kaji nodded, waking the phone up with the press of a button. "Alright. What have we got?"

"All kinds of things!" Mari stood up, walking around to lean over Kaji's shoulder. "Do you want them in order, or do you want to see the big one first?"

Kaji narrowed his eyes. "You tempt me… but, in order. I want to have at least an idea of the layout down there."

"You got it, big guy." Mari reached over, opening the first image. "Alright, so, I had some limitations - I just didn't have the gear to spoof an iris scanner, and the like. So, there were a few doors that I couldn't get in; in fact, what looked like an entire wing was sealed off. This is _that_ door."

The large set of double doors was labeled in English with ' _The Halls of Paradise Lost'_ in large letters above the lintel, with ' _better to reign in hell'_ etched in smaller type just below it. To the side of the doors, a much more normal placard gave a few more details to the secrets within, in Kanji this time: _Project Elohim autolab complex, AT Chromatography Lab,_ and _Artificial Evolution Laboratory Sublevel: East Wing - Lilin Studies._

"John Milton, huh. I always thought Gendo was more of a Kabbalistic kind of guy, but I guess the classics are pretty good too." Kaji shook his head, putting on a wry smirk. "Some of those look even more sinister than normal. _Project Elohim…"_

Mari nodded. "Yeah, creepy stuff, huh? It gets better. The doors in the west wing didn't have iris scanners. Not one. Don't know why. Let's check those photos out, shall we?" She reached over Kaji's shoulder again, swiping through the photos.

A dingy cell-like room, with tiled flooring and walls, and a tiny, dirty cot in one corner - an elementary school uniform lying on the uncovered mattress. A dried-out container of wet wipes, along with some of its equally desiccated contents, littered the floor. A layer of fine dust covered everything. "I don't get this one, really. Door wasn't labeled, and the room looks abandoned. At a guess… this is where Gendo raised his pet, before tossing her out to the west side so she'd actually have a real home address."

Kaji turned his head, looking at Mari out of the corner of his eye. "Rei? You really think they raised her here?"

"Rei isn't human, Kaji, and if you haven't realized that by now you're not as deductive as you think. You saw the shit Asuka snooped out, right?" Mari's voice was hard. "And besides that, you haven't seen _shit_. There's more photos to come."

She swiped to the next one. "Door was labeled ' _Project S2 Adjunct and Direct Research.'_ Make of _that_ what you will."

"Project S2, huh?" Kaji cocked an eyebrow. "I _knew_ that was too important to leave to Bethany Base alone."

"Spot on. It seems that branch was more concerned with artificially constructing a super solenoid unit from live observations, rather than reconstructing or reverse-engineering damaged ones. Now, check _this_ shit out."

The room was very large, wider and longer than most warehouses and with a high ceiling. It contained two rows of immense transparent cylinders - holding tanks, it seemed - with massive assemblies of machinery and electronics clustered around the bases and tops. The two tanks nearest to the door were labeled ' _replica prototyping tank A'_ and ' _replica prototyping tank B;'_ tank A seemed to have several ugly clusters of a strange red crystal in it, suspended by inert wires, while tank B was empty.

In the next photo, Mari had walked far enough to capture the first two tanks behind the prototypes. They bore rather telling labels: _SACHIEL_ and _SHAMSHEL_ stood out in bold black text on the placards. The Sachiel tank had only a disparate cluster of small shards, but they were clearly suspended in a careful spherical pattern, while the wires between them glowed an eerie blue.

The Shamshel tank held an almost completely intact orb, like a huge red monocrystal formed into a sphere. There was a huge, cracked gash in one side - about exactly the size of an Evangelion's progressive knife - but it was otherwise clearly an angel core.

It, too, glowed blue. But in this case, the hellish light emanated from within the core itself, spilling out from the cracks in the red crystal.

"That's a little unnerving," Kaji murmured. "I wonder how close they are to a usable and reproducible unit… looks like Shamshel was an even better sample than I thought."

Mari cocked her head. "You expected this?"

"I had some educated guesses. What better to build an artificial S2 engine from, than the remains of a disabled one?" Kaji smiled, but it only showed on half of his mouth. "I knew as soon as Shamshel didn't explode that Ritsuko would be all over it. I didn't expect this kind of success, though. I doubt it'll be long before she can start building a clone unit… a few months, tops. Of course, that doesn't consider how long the construction itself will take."

"I don't know whether to hope she doesn't take long, or hope for delays." Mari made a face. "Spying under three different banners really messes with your head."

"Yeah. It sure does." Kaji looked back at his companion. "You know that SEELE contacted me again? They seem to be operating under the assumption that I'm too dumb to recognize their blatant attempt to take _us_ out with the trash at Bethany Base. Well, I kept up that charade. But we had better watch our backs if we're still working for them."

"Fuck SEELE. They're the one faction I _know_ I'm not loyal to." Mari's expression was dark. "Anyway. Ready for more horrors?"

"Sure, why not."

Mari touched the phone again, bringing up the next image. "So, I _think_ this is the good doctor's little private project lab…"

Kaji straightened in his seat. "Really?"

"Yeah, look at it. This is room one. Basic medical supplies, a stash of medications, blood draw equipment, a centrifuge and liquid chromatograph - I think this is where she maintains Rei. Especially since some of those drugs match the ones we _know_ Rei is taking. The next room is the real shit, though." Mari opened the next image. "Get a load of this."

The larger room was mostly clear. Along the walls were quite a few counters and tables, mostly with inscrutable devices or sample jars or stacks of paper on them. The clear centerpiece of the room, however, was the large red _entry plug_ resting on concrete skids in the middle of the floor. It had a large steel plate riveted to the visible surface, which read ' _REI - Dummy Plug Evangelion 2015: Rei-00'_ on it.

"The fuck's a dummy plug? Is it an automation device?" Kaji murmured, half to himself. "I know Gendo's been interested in automating the Evas since pretty much day one… I thought the good doctor was staunchly against it, though. Both in theory and practice. Now I'm hoping she was right about how difficult it would be."

"It seems likely," Mari said. "That assembly leading into it is clearly an uplink - I think it's the old model, but whatever. The only conclusion I can draw is that it's for simulating pilotless synchronization."

"There's a window in that plug. Did you see what was in there?"

"Nope. Glass was dark. I think it's electronically darkened, but no fucking way was I taking the time to try and break into Dr. Akagi's secret lab computer."

"That's fair. Pilot or not, there's a decent chance you'd have been shot on sight if you were caught down there." Kaji rubbed his chin. "Is that all?"

"No. Two more." Mari's expression darkened. "I… really should have gotten more photos than these, but I kind of… chickened out? Fuck, were they ever unsettling."

The next photo portrayed a dark room. Strange circles were carved in the floor in concentric patterns, with eldritch runes between them. They centered around an empty tube of LCL, with an enormously complex system of cables and pipes leading into the top of it.

The centerpiece of the room wasn't what drew Kaji attention, however. There was a faint backlight to the walls, visible with the phone screen brightness amplified and the photo zoomed in: the walls were _also_ LCL tanks. Or rather, one large LCL tank. It was impossible to know how deep it went, largely because a large number of human silhouettes floated aimlessly in it, obscuring the light and any attempts to see through the translucent LCL.

Every silhouette was identical: a small human, no more than a teenager. The ones with a straightened posture displayed a clearly feminine figure, slightly curvy if undernourished. The faint halos of floating hair were harder to pick out - only one or two were settled into a shape Kaji recognized - but they were clearly all the same length, and besides, he already knew what he was looking at.

Or rather, _who_ he was looking at.

"It's Rei," he breathed. "They're Rei, they're _all_ Rei. Good God, there's dozens of them. Maybe hundreds…"

Mari looked away from the macabre sight. "The door just read ' _The Chamber of Guf.'_ It was… pretty well sealed, even had a voice print. Took me a while to get in." She shook her head, still not looking at the photo. "I looked closer, for as long as I could take it. They've got serial numbers on their backs, but otherwise they're carbon copies of, y'know, the girl we know. Well… other than being _inert._ Eyes closed, barely breathing, not even a reaction to a tap on the glass. They're totally cataleptic, like… like they're _empty."_

"They probably are," Kaji replied grimly. "I may not know the details, but I'd bet my last yen these are some kind of deliberately vacant vessel. Who knows, maybe they're backups… after all, if you pilots are killed, _someone_ has to pilot the Evas. Maybe they're part of the dummy plug system Ritsuko's working on, or an alternative if it doesn't work…"

" _Jesus."_ Mari tried to keep her speech to Japanese around native speakers, but her curses still sometimes came out in English. "That's… fucking horrifying. I knew Gendo was a grade-A ghoul, but… wow. Okay. Well, the next photo's the last."

Unlike the previous rooms, this one was a cave, hewn from rough rock and apparently left as it was. The floor was paved over with slab concrete, but the walls and ceiling - where visible - were bare, and even bore some stalactites, suggesting that at least part of the cave had been a natural formation.

It was absolutely colossal, dwarfing even the central dogma floor with the Eva cages open. Three Evas could have stood upon each other's shoulders and not reached the ceiling; the floor must have spanned a square kilometer at least and the cavern walls were much further still from the edge of the floor slab. Off to the side of the camera's viewpoint - as Mari seemed to have entered through a side door - a huge set of gates stood, more than large enough to admit an Evangelion walking upright.

"The door read ' _LCL Production Plant,"_ Mari whispered. "Talk about eye opening. I can't believe I used to like the stuff…"

Huge grooves and pits were carved into the concrete floor in strange patterns reminiscent of crop circles; these depressions contained half-submerged bones. The bones of giants. _The bones of angels. No, of half-angels. The bones of evangelions._ But they weren't the room's centerpiece.

A few dozen meters past the end of the floor slab stood huge metal crucifix. Nailed to the cross was a huge, white-skinned humanoid - although, given its features were only partially human, perhaps the word _humanoid_ was too charitable. It was the size of an evangelion, but much bulkier. Its arms and hands seemed normal, but instead of legs its torso simply ended in a bulbous, almost cancerous mass of flesh with what appeared to be tiny cilia dangling from it. It was hairless, and a mask concealed its face. Seven orange, luminescent eyes stared blankly through seven apertures in the mask.

Translucent orange liquid dripped and flowed in a continuous stream from its hands and malformed leg-mass. The liquid had pooled in the bottom of the cavern, submerging everything except the raised concrete floor. It didn't take much deduction to guess what the orange liquid was.

"Well." Kaji's voice held a barely-detectable shakiness to it. "That's… something, alright."

"That's one way of putting it," Mari hissed back. "What _is_ that thing? Is it Adam? I know that's how they're baiting angels _here,_ to NERV-J. It's gotta-"

"No." Kaji shook his head. "Adam was in the little briefcase I brought to Gendo when we landed with Moloch."

Mari narrowed her eyes at the photo again. "That doesn't make sense. How was he so small?"

"Whatever happened in Antarctica broke his physical form. He was nothing more than an embryo… although he _is_ growing, so I wonder how long Gendo can keep him in stasis. It may not matter. I doubt Gendo's plans are far from their culmination, given how fast the angels are attacking now." Kaji smiled humorlessly. "I think this is actually Lilith. You're right in that she must be the one baiting angels here, though. Adam's far too weak yet for them to hear him."

Mari pushed off from the back of Kaji's chair, standing up straight and taking a deep breath. She rocked on her feet, visibly discharging tension.

"Well," she said at last. "Gendo is sitting pretty, huh. He's got both of the primogenitors, most of the evangelion units, _all_ the pilots, and even the corpses of the fallen angels."

"Not necessarily," Kaji replied, somewhat cryptically.

"What do you mean?"

"Are _you_ loyal to Gendo?"

Mari grimaced at the thought. "Fuck no."

"Is Asuka more loyal to Gendo than she is to you?"

The question made Mari roll her eyes. "No, and don't insult her like that in front of me, thanks."

"And can anyone pilot Moloch and Baal other than you two?"

"No… well, not unless Dr. Akagi's dummy plugs are much more advanced than I thought," Mari said, comprehension finally dawning.

"Well then, that's half the Evangelion Corps right there. To say nothing of other circumstances. As we now know, thanks to your sister's astute observations, Misato and Ritsuko aren't quite _completely_ upfront with our glorious leader. And Shinji hates his father, although he doesn't usually have the spine to show it."

"True." Mari looked thoughtful. "I think a lot of NERV staff are at least aware that they're working in the moral grey area. I talked to Maya yesterday, and she… well, she _seemed_ more savvy to NERV's corruption than I expected."

"Maya's pretty damn sharp, underneath that cutesy soft-tomboy look," Kaji agreed. "She's really quite a nice girl if you can take the attitude, though. A little young for me, and too gay to so much as give me the time of day in any case, but still. How _are_ things between you, anyway? Stopped with the constant mutual needling yet?"

"Actually, yes," Mari admitted. "Although the circumstances of the asking were a bit… unorthodox, we actually have a date scheduled for Sunday."

"A date? Just like that?" Kaji seemed amused. "I thought she was still pining over the good doctor."

"She… is?" Mari didn't intend to make it sound like a question, but she wasn't sure herself. "I don't know if she's 'over' her crush on Dr. Akagi, but I think she's too sharp to _not_ figure she's with someone else. Maybe she doesn't know who, but she's the good doctor's assistant and works _very_ close to her side. I think she's finally decided to try and move on."

"Mmm… Well, if you're sure."

Mari grinned wolfishly. "For someone as cute as Maya? Sure enough to take the risk, that's for sure."

 **X-X-X**


	17. Collecting the Keys

**X-X-X**

 _ **Chapter 17**_

 **X-X-X**

"Are you _sure_ she's not pulling another all-nighter?" Asuka grumbled.

"She usually at least texts me when she plans to stay at NERV overnight," Shinji said, his tone neutral as he continued stirring the pot on the stove. "She works late all the time, though. She's come home far later than this. I'm sure Ramiel created all sorts of paperwork messes, after all."

"Eh, don't worry about it," Mari said, leaning heavily against Asuka's shoulder in a blatant attempt to annoy her. She swung her legs up onto the couch for better leverage.

"Oi, get off me, Four Eyes!"

Asuka, Mari and Kaji were gathered together in Misato's living room, looking _almost_ like an average family. In the kitchen, Shinji busied himself cooking dinner. Although tensions would probably rise as soon as Misato returned and the agenda for their grim gathering came to light, for a while they could almost pretend to be a _normal_ social circle.

"I can wait all night. I don't get to hang out with you enough these days, Asuka~"

"Hmph!" Asuka folded her arms, but didn't move to push Mari away. "Not my fault we're _real_ soldiers now, Four Eyes. With _real_ responsibilities. I ain't got time to be your tag-along everywhere you go anymore."

"True." Mari's voice took on a slightly more subdued tone. "I'm glad I can still watch your back, though."

At that moment, the front door opened, and the apartment went deathly quiet.

"Shinji! Asuka! I'm home!"

Misato wandered haphazardly past the entryway to the living room, sparing a glance at the assembled people but not, it seemed, truly registering their presence. She continued on to her bedroom, and the sound of the door opening was followed by the sound of what was probably her handbag and jacket being unceremoniously dumped onto the floor.

There was a moment of silence. Then, rapid footsteps carried Misato back to the living room entrance.

"Kaji? Mari?" Misato shook her head as if to clear it, then frowned. "What are you two doing here?"

There was a moment where none of them spoke. Then Mari nudged Asuka, muttering "It's your show, princess" as she did so.

Asuka stiffened, doing her best to stand at attention whilst still sitting down. "Ah. Yes. Captain Katsuragi Misato, it has come to my attention - as leader and ranking officer of the Pilot Corps - that one of my pilots is being subject to gross negligence, and likely other mistreatments, by their NERV handler."

Misato stiffened, and Asuka regarded her carefully. Despite her laid back attitude outside of work, Misato was far from stupid, and Asuka's question had been clearly coded - if she wanted something out of Misato for herself or Shinji, she'd have already whined about it. Accusing NERV directly showed she was deadly serious about her grievance.

The captain's posture changed. Her back straightened, and she clasped her elbows in her hands behind her. Intentional or not, she had defaulted to a military at-ease stance.

"I'm listening, Lieutenant," she said quietly.

"The pilot in question is Warrant Officer Ayanami Rei."

Misato winced, although she didn't give the impression that she had expected anything different. "Asuka, you _must_ know you're sticking your hand in a shark tank."

"That's Lieutenant Langley-Soryu to you. We're still talking army stuff, aren't we?" Asuka crossed her arms. "I have witnesses and evidence of Ayanami's deplorable living conditions. However, I… ultimately decided it would be wiser to address you directly, rather than seeking a court martial by the usual channels."

"Really, now."

"Hey, you said it, not me. Shark tank." Asuka looked over each of the others. "And we're all pretty clever here - even Shinji, to a degree - so let's not insult anyone's intelligence by pretending that NERV isn't soaked in corruption on almost every level."

Misato sighed, and pinched the bridge of her nose. She looked at the floor beneath her, and found it largely clear of debris due to Shinji's earlier efforts. Apparently satisfied, she sat down, crossing her legs.

"Kaji? Mari? Shinji?" She said, her voice hesitant. "You're all behind this?"

To everyone's surprise, Shinji - standing quietly in the kitchen entryway - was the first to respond, nodding emphatically. "At first I thought that father replaced me with her," he said quietly. "Now, I've seen that being in his care is bad news for anyone."

Mari nodded at Shinji's words. "Well, you already know me and Kaji's primary hobby these days…"

"And Rei is clearly mixed up in _that,"_ Kaji finished. "Not to be overly clinical when speaking about the fate of a child, but swaying her to our way of thinking could be critical to uncovering the deeper corruption in NERV. And, frankly, it's also the right thing to do. Nobody deserves to live in that grimy hovel."

Misato's expression was the kind of neutral that could only indicate a careful poker face.

"Alright," she said eventually. "What do you want _me_ to do about it?"

Asuka spoke up again. "Well, you _are_ ops director, and technically the handler of all pilots below age of majority, so if I were to take this to court-martial-" Kaji and Misato visibly winced at the words - "then I suppose, in theory, the blame would fall directly on you. But we all know I wouldn't even get that far, and that's not really the whole story anyway."

"Praise all gods," Mari murmured. "My little sister has learned to actually _think_ before she acts."

"Shut it, Four Eyes. Ahem. In fact, Captain, I am more interested in enlisting you to dig a little deeper into how and _why_ R- er, Ayanami is being treated this way -"

"Yes, yes. What makes you think I can find out anything more?"

"The fact that, despite your formal duty as our handler and caregiver, Doctor Akagi is far more responsible for Rei's care than you ever have been."

Misato frowned. "And you think she'll tell me what she wouldn't tell you?"

"I _know_ she'll tell you what she won't tell me. And not just because you're higher up the food chain."

"Really? Why, then?"

Asuka affected a dry smile, although she wasn't actually feeling particularly humorous. "Well, I don't _want_ to call you out in front of everyone like that," she replied. "But I'll say I sleep pretty lightly these days, and I've got good hearing."

Misato stared dumbly at Asuka for a moment. Then her eyes widened almost comically, and a faint but discernible blush crept across her cheeks. "... dammit," she murmured.

"Am I wrong?" Asuka pressed.

"No. You're not wrong." Misato sighed with resignation. "I'll talk to Ritsuko."

"Thank you. Make sure you ask about medications while you're at it. Those pill bottles scare me."

The atmosphere in the room softened. It didn't fade entirely, but the major cause of tension between those present was resolved; their cadre finally seemed unified in their quest to bring justice to the dark halls of NERV.

"Well, I'm glad that's over," Shinji commented from the kitchen. "Soup's ready, and yes, I _did_ plan to feed five. Come on in here and let's eat."

 **X-X-X**

"Wow, this is… I'm impressed, honestly."

"Nice, isn't it?" Maya looked around, taking in the surroundings with one eye and scanning for a waiter to flag down with the other. "I'll be honest, I doubt either of us could have afforded this place without their discounts to NERV staff. Their clientele seems to be mainly visiting JSSDF officers, with us underpaid little specialists only visiting once in a blue moon."

"What?!" Mari managed not to outright _yell,_ but her voice rose an octave. "Jeez, way to take advantage of an offer!"

"Oh, hush you. I was thinking of making it a dutch-date anyway; besides, you make more money than me."

At that, Mari blinked, confused. "But… you're a good two rungs _above_ me on the ladder. First Lieutenant, yeah?"

"Yeah, but you Pilot Corps get hazard pay while on duty alert. And you haven't been _off_ duty alert since you came to Tokyo-3; you never go below green standby. To be honest, I can hardly begrudge that - I know _I'd_ be demanding bigger paychecks if I had to wrestle freakish monstrosities on a regular basis."

"Huh." Mari cocked her head at that. "I _had_ wondered why I seemed to be making more than a warrant officer's usual fare."

"Well, now you know."

The conversation lulled as Mari realized that she actually had _no idea_ how to talk to pretty girls she was interested in and whom actually seemed to like her back. However, Maya beat her to the punch.

"Okay, so, not that I've been on many dates, but I feel like talking about work is a bit of a waste. Especially when we work in the same building," she said. "Why don't you tell me a bit about yourself, miss Illustrious?"

Mari leaned back in her chair. "I speak three languages - English, German and Japanese. Your turn."

Maya frowned. "I already knew _that."_

"Oh, fine. Hmm… I play video games in my spare time."

"Really?" Maya cocked her head, an amused smile on her face. "I suppose I should have guessed that; you do kind of look the type."

"Wow, _thanks._ Your turn."

"I wear contact lenses."

"What?! Really?" Mari leaned forward, staring into Maya's eyes. "Holy shit. Had me completely fooled."

Maya blinked, and Mari realized it may have been a _little_ bit forward of her to lean right in and gaze into someone else's eyes. However, Maya didn't seem unduly fazed by it. "I don't like how I look with glasses. I could never pull off that cute librarian look you have going on."

"Cute librarian? I wish. I wear glasses because I _can't_ wear contacts when I'm swimming in LCL." Mari pouted. "In fact, I bet you'd look _way_ cuter than me in glasses."

"Well, too bad. I haven't worn my glasses to work in over a year and I don't intend to start now."

"Then I'll just have to make sure I see you more often _outside_ of work, then," Mari murmured back. "Won't I?"

Maria's lowered tone produced the first weak spot she'd seen in Maya's composure - a brief pause as she searched for words; not quite a blush, but the words had clearly had an impact. _Yes! It might be a baby step, but I think she's worth it._

"You pilots all seem to have a terribly persistent streak," Maya finally remarked. "I can't tell if it's a good or bad thing."

"Depends who you ask. Most say good. Can't be having pilots cracking under pressure, can we?"

"No, but on the other hand, it means that sometimes you don't think things through, or can't leave well enough alone."

Mari grinned. "Nope, can't leave well enough alone _at all."_ She took a slow drink from her glass of water. "You'd be amazed what you learn about people, or organizations, when you're as nosy as me. But, surely atrocities and crimes against humanity aren't first date material?"

"Good point." Maya looked around as subtly as she could - the place wasn't _extremely_ crowded, but given that the clientele was likely to be mostly military, it wouldn't do to be overheard. She noted that a server was approaching with their food.

"In fact, I have a completely different kind of question," Mari said, fixing Maya with an odd look. "And it may not be first date material, but I feel like I should probably get it out of the way early…"

Maya tilted her head inquisitively.

"Well… you've been visibly carrying a torch for Doctor Akagi as long as I've known you, until now." Mari sat back in her chair. "What's changed?"

Maya fell silent for a moment as their meals were laid out on the table. As the server left, she found her voice again.

"Senpai is… quite a woman," she managed at last. "Beautiful. Accomplished. Powerful. Intimidatingly… no, _terrifyingly_ intelligent; you may think I'm smart, but beside her I look like a high school dropout. But…"

Mari raised an eyebrow expectantly. She also picked up her chopsticks, because she pretty much always had an appetite for good food, and there was no reason to let it get cold while she waited.

"Well, these past few weeks… months, I guess, have changed my perspective a bit. I guess I was kind of starry-eyed before. Nothing like actual battle duty to bring one's head out of the clouds, though." Maya poked at her food. "Doctor Akagi isn't the ideal woman I imagined her to be. She's a fair bit older than me, she's arrogant, she's _hard…_ ruthless, even. She lies easily, even to me, and it feels like she has her own agenda in everything. She's somewhat cavalier about ethical treatment, of patients, and others. _Also,_ I'm fairly sure she's already seeing someone."

 _All that, and she thinks she isn't as smart as I made her out to be?! Maya, if you applied yourself, you'd be a better spy than I am…_

"So, you decided to try to move on with the next woman down the list?"

Maya looked away, frowning slightly. "It's not like that," she replied, her voice softer than before. "I _am_ genuinely interested in you - you're sharp, you're strong-willed, you're pretty, you're not my direct superior or subordinate…"

"Always a plus, that one."

" - and don't you _dare_ pretend that a gay woman in the Japanese armed forces has a lot of dating options on her plate," Maya finished. "So. That's my reasoning. Take it or leave it, I guess."

Mari tried to make a show of considering it, but failed to keep a straight face. "I'll take it," she chuckled. "I'm hardly in a place to judge someone for their emotional baggage. And I'm interested in you, too. It seems worth trying out, if nothing else."

Maya's smile was relieved, though her voice was even. "I'm glad you think so."

 **X-X-X**

Asuka hated Mondays. It was nothing to do with _work -_ technically, she worked on call twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week - but she hated going back to the grind of _school._

 _I literally have a college degree, it's nothing but an insult for me to be in high school…_

She'd tried to approach Rei twice since the morning bell, but hadn't managed to find the time. Their sensei seemed to have picked the worst possible week to take class times seriously and show up on time.

Now that Asuka's right hand was recovered enough to write with, Rei had moved back to her window seat. Asuka found, to her consternation, that she actually missed the other girl's quiet presence at her side.

 _No, now's not the time to think about that._

Rei looked… not exactly worse than she had before, but certainly no better. Despite lacking any increased interest in the lessons, she wasn't leaning on her arm like she used to. Rather than stare out the window for hours on end, her eyes would periodically dart around the room before returning to her vigil. From time to time, her hands would twitch aimlessly or her leg would bounce.

Oh, and there was the fact that Asuka had made it to school before Rei for the first time in her memory. _That_ was truly unusual; Asuka had briefly consulted Hikari about it, and had learned that Rei usually arrived so early that she beat _teachers_ there, let alone students.

"Ms. Soryu? Can _you_ answer the question on the blackboard?"

Asuka cursed silently, her attention whipping back to the lesson. _Old bastard, he knew I wasn't listening!_

Fortunately, the subject matter wasn't a humanities class. Not that she wouldn't have known the answer; it was just incredibly embarrassing to have to ask someone to translate the Kanji on the blackboard for her.

However, currently, the subject was mathematics. A topic Asuka could follow in her _sleep_.

"Mmm… X equals the negative square root of five."

The glare that the teacher gave her was all she needed to know that she'd answered correctly.

"And how did you arrive to that conclusion, hmm?"

"I'm not walking up there and drawing out the longhand formula on the blackboard." Asuka leaned back and crossed her arms. "That's my answer. Take it or mark me down."

The teacher stared her down for a solid fifteen seconds before sighing and moving on.

"Now, for the next question I want you to open your books to page 193…"

 **X-X-X**

Asuka paid virtually no attention to her classes, but it didn't worry her too much. Apart from her subpar performance with written Japanese, she was light-years ahead of her peers in academic ability; and she had other things on her mind.

The moment the bell rang, she sprang to her feet like a popping jack-in-the-box and gathered her books up as fast as humanly possible.

"Tell Misato I'll be home late! Bye, Shinji!"

"Soryu, where -" but Shinji didn't get a chance to finish. Asuka was already hightailing out of the school.

Rei walked quickly. The agitated state she had seemed to be in earlier had, if anything, _increased_ her ability to move at nearly a jogging speed without lifting her feet. Even with her leg-length advantage Asuka found herself hard pressed to actually catch up with the girl; had she not known the route from the school to Rei's house already, she would have gotten lost more than a few times just on the first leg.

It was only once she got on the train that she finally had an opportunity to approach. Rei was sitting in an otherwise entirely empty car, staring off into space with total obliviousness to the world around her. From time to time she would blink rapidly.

 _An empty train car, in Japan? There's the real proof that Tokyo-3 is a dying city._

"Rei," she called, slowly approaching. The other pilot did not acknowledge that she had spoken. "Rei?"

Rei did not seem to notice Asuka until the German pilot was standing right in front of her. When she did, she looked up quickly - _too_ quickly - to meet Asuka's eyes.

"Are you a hallucination?" She asked, her voice barely above a whisper. Asuka's frown deepened.

"No. No, I'm real." It took conscious effort to keep her voice from shaking, but Asuka managed. "Have you been suffering hallucinations, Rei?"

Rei fell silent, and Asuka gritted her teeth. "Answer me, Pilot!"

"Never complex ones, no." Rei's voice had fallen to a true whisper, and Asuka had to lean closer to hear her over the roar of the train's engine. "But my defects continue to progress, despite my best efforts. The development of major psychotic symptoms would not surprise me."

"Defects?" Asuka leaned closer, reaching out to touch Rei's shoulder. "What do you mean, Rei?"

Once again, Rei failed to answer, instead simply looking down and away from Asuka's piercing gaze. Once again, she seemed twitchy, moving with rapid sharp jerks instead of her usual barely-motivated drift.

" _Rei."_ Asuka dropped into a crouch, leaning closer still; Rei pulled back slightly, but didn't seem to have the willpower to look away a second time. "Talk to me, would you?"

Ironically, Rei looked more expressive than Asuka had ever seen her, but it brought Asuka no satisfaction to see _terror_ in her eyes. Her pupils were wide and glassy, and she seemed to be _shivering._

"Rei? _Verdammt,_ do you _really_ need to make this so difficult-"

"They're supposed to stop this confusion… to suppress _feeling._ That's what they told me," Rei whispered, her silence cracking like a flooding dam. "Doctor Akagi Naoko told that to One. Doctor Akagi Ritsuko told that to Two, and Three. But they aren't working, they aren't _working…"_

The train began to slow, and the car lurched. Rei swayed sideways, her body listing like a sinking ship.

" _Rei!"_ Asuka almost ended up knocked over herself as she lunged forward, trying to catch the other girl before she suffered a concussion. She ended up awkwardly perched over the train seats with Rei's head and shoulders in her arms. " _Scheisse!_ How can you have power-walked all this way if you're going to collapse _now?!"_

With a bit of effort, Asuka managed to maneuver her unconscious teammate to lie flat on the seats. Checking Rei's pulse yielded a racing heartbeat, and her skin was _extremely_ warm - in fact, she was sweating quite heavily.

 _Alright, I'm calling it. This is a medical emergency._ Asuka sprang to her feet, crossing the train car and engaging the emergency brake - fortunately, the train had only just been leaving the station, and was not up to full speed yet. Without stopping to acknowledge any stunned passengers, she dug her NERV-issue cellphone out of her pocket and hit the speed dial.

"Hello, Section Two? The First Child has suffered a medical emergency and is currently unconscious. I know you keep traces on us, so you know where we are. Get here ASAP." Hanging up, she dropped the phone back into her pocket and crouched down beside her unconscious comrade, doing her best to provide triage.

 _She's still twitching, but she was twitching before, so… it's probably not a seizure. Heartbeat, breathing, not great, but no need for CPR yet. Temperature is the most worrying problem here._ Working as quickly as she could, she stripped off the strange vest that was a requirement of her school uniform and dug her water bottle out of her backpack. After folding and drenching the cloth, she laid the impromptu cooling pad over Rei's neck.

It was a tense four minutes before two of Section 2's black vans screeched to a halt beside the railway tracks. Asuka got up to punch the emergency door-open button, and three tall goons in nondescript black suits and sunglasses immediately climbed into the train car, apparently sweeping for threats. A fourth man - this one dressed more normally in a blue polo shirt and black pants, clearly an EMT - followed them, immediately going over to Rei.

"What can you tell me?" He said, his tone clipped.

"Breathing okay, fast heartbeat, feverish, twitchy," Asuka rattled off. "Before she lost consciousness, her pupils were really wide. She seemed kinda confused - she might have been hallucinating? That's all I've got, I didn't get to talk to her long."

"No head or neck injuries? No bleeding?"

"No, there wasn't any physical trauma that I saw."

"Alright. Thank you." The EMT turned, waving one of the goons over. "We should be safe to move her. Let's get her on over to NERV medical, guys."

Moving very, very carefully, the EMT and the Section 2 goon lifted Rei off the row of seats and carried her out of the train. They needed the other two goons' assistance to lower her down from the door of the train to the ground, but soon enough she was safe in the larger of the black vans.

Asuka went to follow the goons into the van, but the last one in blocked her, silently shaking his head.

"Excuse me?" She growled. "You're not letting me - her commanding officer, I'll remind you - go with her?"

"I'm afraid I can't," came the noncommittal reply. "You don't have the clearance."

" _Was zur Hölle?_ I'm a Lieutenant, what the fuck is there in D Wing that I don't have clearance for?!"

"We're not taking her to D Wing. She's going to the special Section Three clinic," the man replied.

" _What_ special Section Three Clinic-"

The van doors abruptly slammed shut in her face. Asuka was left standing dumbfounded by the roadside as the vans' tires screeched and they careened away.

"Fucking _arschlochs,"_ she hissed, digging out her phone and tapping in Misato's number. After four rings, the captain answered.

" _Asuka? What's so urgent you need to call me at work?"_

Asuka opened her mouth to speak, then hesitated. The call was between two NERV phones; she was taking a risk just by calling so soon after reporting Rei's distress. She couldn't afford to spill anything more on an unsecured line.

"You know. Girl problems," she snapped cryptically. "I need to talk to you. At NERV. I'll be in the geofront as soon as I can."

" _Asuka, what -"_ but Asuka had already hung up, unwilling to risk the call continuing.

The stopped train's bell rang, shattering the quiet. A moment later, it started moving again. Asuka glared at the train as if it had personally offended her.

 _Well, no reason to keep going that way anyway,_ she thought sourly.

After a short, moderately illegal jaunt that took her across the train tracks and backtracked to the now-deserted station a little ways up the rail, she threw herself haphazardly onto one of the benches to await the next train back to Central Tokyo-3.

The tracker board predicted no less than a five minute wait. With nothing to fill her time with, all of the stress and anger and worry that she'd kept carefully suppressed for the entire day had no choice but to bubble to the surface.

" _Fuck!"_

 **X-X-X**


	18. Fallen Angel

**told myself I'd update on the 1st and then I go and come down sick at work that day... well, better late than never I guess.**

 **huge, huge shoutout to reviewer Lotus'Guard for proofreading my use of the german language, can't thank you enough mate. Corrections have been integrated into a backedit.**

 **Due to same backedit, however, I should also mention that it erased some previous author's notes I had here. The backedit on the ao3 upload of this fic has retained its author's notes, if anything in them was of interest.**

 **X-X-X**

 _ **Chapter 18**_

 **X-X-X **

"It looks like hyperseretonemia. She should be fine within twenty-four to forty-eight hours, as long as symptoms are managed until then and she doesn't enter a seizure."

Maya looked up, her brow furrowing. "Why on earth would Rei develop hyperseretonemia?"

"Improperly dosing her medication would do it," Ritsuko replied, her tone befitting the clinical setting. "A significant metabolic change might, too."

Maya frowned, looking away. Dr. Akagi had never told her _what_ medications Rei took - only ever obliquely referring to their existence, if at all. _Still, if there was ever an opportune time to probe, I can't think of better…_

"What medications is she on that might cause hyperseretonemia?" Looking back up, she noticed that Ritsuko's expression was already closing off into its defensive mask. "I haven't observed her closely, but I suppose I shouldn't be surprised she's taking antidepressants."

Ritsuko nodded. "She is. Her dose should never be high enough to cause this, though."

 _Interesting. She just answered outright to an obviously leading question. I expect, then, that it's true - just not the whole truth._

"So, you think she won't come to any serious harm?"

Ritsuko sighed, a somewhat uncharacteristic expression for her. "No way to be certain. Like I said, the hyperseretonemia might cause a seizure, but I dare not give her an anticonvulsant before the fact." Pulling up her lab coat sleeves, she retrieved a cold pack from the laboratory refrigerator behind her and swapped it out for the depleted and warm one that Rei's head had been lying on. "The best we can do right now is keep her temperature from spiking and wait."

Maya nodded, but her frown didn't soften.

 **X-X-X**

The Artificial Evolution Laboratory was a massive complex. Not _quite_ the largest structure within NERV headquarters - Central Dogma, which contained everything to do with storage, maintenance and deployment of _Evangelion units,_ was still larger - but it was still huge. It was also far more sparsely populated than the rest of headquarters, and operated mostly as a repository for the myriad of specialized equipment that the Section 3 technicians worked with. One might take two turns in the hallways before seeing another lab coat.

Since Section 3 tended to hire on workaholics who were married to their jobs, the break rooms tended to be even _more_ deserted. One such room, in one of the further corners of the AEL and bordering an exterior wall of the NERV pyramid, was something of a getaway for Ritsuko while she was working. Thus, she'd personally overseen the installation of Faraday shielding in the already sound-insulated walls, and regularly swept the room for bugs.

She was also careful to ensure the ventilation fans were kept in good order, since the room would otherwise be frequently clouded in stale cigarette smoke.

 _Thirty hours? Really?_ Ritsuko gazed idly at the wall clock. _No wonder my head hurts. And legs, too. Fuck, does it feel good to be sitting down again._

There was a half-burned cigarette in her mouth. It had gone out at some point in the last few minutes, while Ritsuko was - apparently - spacing out.

 _Damn it, Ritsuko. You need sleep. Caffeine and nicotine can only fuel a body for so long._ Her fingers fished a lighter out of her pocket, more out of conditioned reflex than conscious choice, and brought the shaking flame up to the tobacco. _Not that I'll get it; not that anyone at NERV can actually sleep easily at night. Even the lucky ones that can still live with themselves…_

"Doctor Akagi."

Ritsuko flinched, almost dropping the lighter. The flat, accusing voice was one she could recognize easily, even from directly behind her.

"Asuka," she replied, carefully keeping the nervous tremor out of her voice. "You aren't authorized with AEL access. Care to explain how you got here?"

"That's _Lieutenant Langley-Soryu_ to you." Asuka didn't sound intimidated in the slightest. "Captain Katsuragi let me in."

Ritsuko cursed silently. "Captain Katsuragi doesn't know what's good for her, flaunting rules like that," she murmured. "You should leave. You aren't cleared -"

"You and your _girlfriend_ can have that fight later," Asuka interrupted harshly. "I'm here now, and I'm not leaving until I get what I want."

 _That was a calculated accusation. She knows. She fucking knows._ "And what is it you want?" Ritsuko replied, her voice still measured and steady.

"Answers."

Ritsuko let out a short bark, halfway between a sharp laugh and a cough on the smoke of her cigarette. "You like to dance close to the fire, don't you, Lieutenant?" She choked out.

"You're _verdammt_ right I do. Gonna talk?"

Ritsuko's hand went up to the stub of what had once been a cigarette, and she flicked it carelessly onto the floor as she sat up straight in her chair. "Well, you seem to have considerably more leverage over me than I expected," she said. "And it's not like I'm unfamiliar with treachery. Go turn on that toaster oven, will you?"

"What? Why?" Asuka entered Ritsuko's field of vision as she walked over to the break room counter, examining the decrepit and rusting machine. "Are you trying to pull one over me?"

 _If I was trying to pull one over you, I'd have shot you in the back as soon as you looked away. The Commander would even commend me, if he knew where you've been digging lately._

"I'm reasonably certain no one is listening in here, but that machine emits loud, broad-spectrum electromagnetic noise when running." Ritsuko smiled to herself for a second. "I didn't even need to modify it. It's a perfect signal jammer for any tiny microphones that… might have found there way in here."

"Jeez, paranoid much?"

"Paranoia is a form of delusion; a delusion is a belief that the subject holds even in the face of overwhelming, empirical evidence against." Ritsuko dug her cigarettes out of her lab coat pocket, retrieving a lone paper cylinder from the pack. "Whereas I, in contrast, have overwhelming empirical evidence that I am _most certainly_ being spied upon. In fact, as NERV's computer administrator, many of these surveillance systems are under my direct authority; however, my sweeps regularly turn up unregistered bugs and cameras in my workspaces. _Never_ doubt that the walls have ears here."

Asuka sighed, her frown deepening. "Fine, I'll give you that much. Your jammer is on. Now _sing."_

"No need to be rude. God, you're as bull-headed as your mother ever was." Ritsuko rolled her eyes, ignoring how Asuka's teeth gritted at the mention of Kyoko Soryu. "There's _far_ too much for me to give you a top-down explanation right now. Ask me specifics, please."

"Specifics?!" Asuka growled, her clenched fists almost shaking with anger. "Well, how about we _start_ with why one of _my_ pilots - all of whom are under _your_ medical care, remember - might be blacking out from fever, huh?"

"The hyperseretonemia hasn't progressed to seizures; Rei's prognosis is already much better than it was. She will recover." _After all, even if she dies, Rei will always recover eventually._

"Nice answer. Real evasive," Asuka said icily. "I'm no doctor, so I don't really recognize that term, but I'd bet all the money I've ever owned that it's something to do with that cocktail of chemicals you feed her. Am I close?"

"Spot on, in fact. That said, her mix should have been stable. I can hardly be held responsible for her overdosing."

Asuka stepped towards the table, her posture surprisingly threatening for a young, unarmed teenager. "Why was she taking them in the first place?"

Ritsuko took a heavy drag on her cigarette, blowing the smoke straight at Asuka without shifting her expression a single millimeter. To her credit, the German didn't flinch away from the smoke cloud. "Good fucking question," Ritsuko mused, her tone idle. "Yeah, I know I'm the keeper of secrets around here, but I don't know _everything._ I don't even know if my mother knew _that_ , and she designed the first formula… but she died not long after, so now only our glorious leader could tell you."

"What do you mean by the _first_ formula?"

"Rei's metabolism is very adaptive to the presence of foreign adulterants. Within no more than a matter of months on any one drug, that drug's effects taper down to nothing as her body learns how to flush it out." Ritsuko tapped the ash off her cigarette. "I have a list of general classes of compounds that work, laid out by my mother and mandated by the Commander. I frequently have to rotate them - it seems like one compound or another is always failing, these days."

Asuka took a deep breath, forcing her fists to uncurl. "And you've _no_ idea what this witches' brew is for?"

"Well, I have _ideas._ It keeps her docile, more dependent on the Commander's will than she might be otherwise. But it's a bit much for that task alone - and I don't know what _else_ it's for."

Asuka's glare deepened. "Tell Rei to stop taking them."

"Oh? You'd order me, just like that?" Ritsuko's eyebrows rose as she took another drag on her cigarette. "At my own risk, I assume, so it'll be my neck on the block when Rei talks about it to the Commander."

"It'd be no less than you deserve," Asuka retorted harshly.

"Well, I certainly can't argue with that." Ritsuko stubbed out her cigarette, leaving the filter end lying on the table. "But, I must say, you sure have a lot of nerve. _Demanding_ that I concede to your wishes? When you're the unarmed one, here?"

Asuka's eye twitched very slightly, but she gave no other hint of being intimidated. _Oh, she has a real backbone on her. All the righteous fury Kyoko ever had, and then some. Hopefully it won't get her killed, like it did her mother…_

"Count yourself _lucky_ I'm unarmed," Asuka replied. "After what you've admitted to doing - to one of _my_ pilots, count yourself _very_ lucky."

"Bold words indeed." Ritsuko was struck with whimsical, though also objectively stupid, urge. She reached under her lab coat, unbuttoned the holster strap under her left shoulder, and deposited her Ruger pistol onto the table. Meeting Asuka's eyes, she gave the weapon a push, sliding it across the smooth steel to within the pilot's reach. "There, now you _are_ armed. It's loaded. Feel stronger now?"

Ritsuko had expected the move to intimidate Asuka. Instead, however, her expression darkened with determination, and she picked up the gun with a firm grip. She murmured something in German as she did so, too low for Ritsuko to make out.

"What was that?"

Asuka looked up from the weapon in her hands, and raised it in the same motion. Her gun arm didn't shake, and her finger was straight beside the trigger. _The Bundeswehr trained her well, it seems. No child should know her guns like that._

"I said, that was _fucking_ stupid of you," Asuka said, softly, but clear as glass. With her other hand, she reached over the gun and flicked the safety off.

"Well, once again I find myself truly unable to disagree." With careful control, Ritsuko kept any trace of tremor out of her voice, and she reached into her pocket for another cigarette. "So, am I less lucky now that the tables have turned?"

"I don't know. _Are_ you?" Asuka's glare turned into a snarl, and her finger moved over the trigger - ready to pull. _She wouldn't be primed like that if she wasn't ready - or at least seriously testing herself -_

Lowering the gun, Asuka clicked the safety back on as she set it down. "You're lucky I'm not as stupid as you," she said bitterly. " _I_ know better, but in my shoes I wouldn't trust many teenagers to think it through."

"Well, it's good you learned it. Hold on to that," Ritsuko replied, her tone abrasive. "If you want to stay alive in this game, get used to being a small fish in a _big_ pond."

"Ugh, spare me the self-righteous lecture, _Gott._ Now I wish I _had_ shot you. Plenty of places to aim that would have been nonlethal and appropriately painful."

"Keep telling yourself that." Ritsuko stood, carelessly pushing her chair back behind herself. "Can I have my gun back? It was kind of expensive."

"Are you going to take Rei off those drugs?"

Ritsuko sighed heavily. "Yes, sure. Whatever. Well, except the raw LCL injections and NS supplement; those actually _are_ necessary to sustain her health. But I'll take her off the psychiatric meds, at least."

"Then yeah, here you go." Asuka slid the pistol back across the table. Ritsuko picked it up slowly, buckling it back into its shoulder holster.

"Awfully trusting of you. I haven't even told you that much."

"You gave me a gun and let me _draw on you_ , so you're not really one to talk, are you? And you've been armed this whole time otherwise, and you claim the room is soundproof, so. If you wanted me dead, I'd _be_ dead. Being the best pilot wouldn't mean anything; I'm sure you wouldn't find it _too_ hard to convince the Commander that I needed to die." Asuka shook her head, and walked over to the door. "Besides, I got what I came for. I don't need to hear the rest of your _scheisse;_ you can sing that to the others."

Frowning, Ritsuko tilted her head. "The others?"

"Oh, yeah." The doors slid open as Asuka approached. "Get comfortable with the idea of spilling your secrets, 'cause there's a fucking _line."_

 **X-X-X**

" _Oh. You came."_

 _Dimly, awareness seeps back. Floating in lukewarm, viscous liquid. There is an overpowering smell of blood._

 _LCL?_

" _I wasn't sure if you'd make it. You've become so much more real, recently." A soft chuckle. "The other one was so easy to reach, but it's hard to talk much with a tiny seed of a thing that hasn't yet left her womb."_

 _Rei's eyes open. There is another being's face before her, about three feet away from her own._

 _The first thing she notices is that the face is upside-down. It doesn't seem too fantastic, however, in context - with softly lit LCL as far as the eye can see in every direction, and little discernible sense of gravity, perhaps Rei is the one who is the wrong way up._

 _The second thing she notices is that the face is that of a boy about her age, with very pale hair, and eyes like dark and clotting blood. The orange filter of the LCL washes out precise colors, but it is already clear that this boy is no normal lilin._

" _Lilith?" He asks, smiling gently. "Or, Ayanami Rei? Which name do you prefer?"_

 _Rei opens her mouth to speak, but not in answer. "Who are you?" she asks. "What is this?"_

 _The boy's smile widens. "You can call me Kaworu," he replies._

 _Rei doesn't return the expression. "What is this?" She asks again._

" _This is a dream, of course," Kaworu replies. "Do you not know what a dream is?"_

 _Rei knows what a dream is. She's heard of them, if never experienced one herself. "Do you mean this is not real?"_

" _Oh, it's real. I simply use the medium of dreams, because a phone call, or seeing you in person, is something that would be closely monitored by my masters." His smile turned a little sad. "Yours too, I expect."_

 _Rei struggles to reconcile the concepts, but her understanding fails. "If this is a dream, shouldn't that mean you aren't really here?"_

 _Kaworu's smile turns to a smirk. "Come now, Ayanami Rei. Surely, you must know that the normal rules of what a human is or what they can do, don't apply to nephilim like you or I in the same way."_

 _Rei's attention is captured. "You are like me? That cannot be true. I would have known if there was another Lilith."_

" _You would have?"_

" _I have known the presence of my past selves. It stands to reason."_

 _Kaworu's smile is genial again. "Well, then I suppose you'll find out about Nine on your own, soon enough." He tilts his head. "I, however, am not a Lilith."_

" _What can you be, if not a Lilith?" Rei's expression doesn't change, but her voice carries a trace of confusion._

" _You know as well as I do that there are not one, but two lifeseeds inhabiting this planet," Kaworu replies placidly._

" _Adam."_

" _Just so."_

" _Then you are more angel than Lilith herself," Rei states. "You are NERV's enemy."_

 _Kaworu's smile doesn't fade. "And yet I am at least as human as you are," he chuckles. "And I am not… exactly NERV's enemy, not in the way my siblings are. You're right in that I'm not NERV's ally, though."_

" _Then to whom do you answer?" Rei presses._

" _I have a purpose, just like the other angels," Kaworu replies. "And just like you do. But unlike them, you and I have the gift of free will. We have the autonomy to follow our masters or subvert them, as we choose."_

 _For the first time, Rei's expression cracks, and a tiny frown graces her face. "I do not understand."_

" _You will," Kaworu says, smiling brightly once more. "The choice will be forced upon you sooner or later. I already know what my decision will be - but do you, Lilith? Do you?"_

" _I do not understand…"_

 _Kaworu frowns for a minute, but then his face smooths out into an enigmatically neutral look._

" _Perhaps you do not need to, not yet," he says softly. "I would ask only, that you consider this question…"_

 _Rei tilts her head slightly._

" _Does your master truly deserve the loyalty you have placed in him? And…" he puts his finger on his lips thoughtfully. "And if your answer to that, is No… then, is there another, that you would rather serve?"_

 _Rei blinks, saying nothing in reply._

" _You need not answer right now, of course. Those questions are for you, not for me." He smiles again. "But, keep them in your thoughts. Be ready to answer them when you are asked again. If you wait too long, the choice will be forced upon you."_

" _I do not understand." Rei goes to take a step forward, but Kaworu doesn't grow any closer. He shakes his head gently._

" _Goodbye, Ayanami Rei. Until we meet again."_

" _Wait," she says, her voice raised closer to a shout than it has ever been before. "I do not understand -"_

 **X-X-X**

 _This_

 _This body is_

 _This body is 10.59 years old_

 _This body is 10.59 years old and its heart has beat 444,705,529 times_

Rei's eyes snapped open. She immediately twitched, compulsively wrapping her arms around her body and curling herself into the fetal position.

 _What is happening to me? Why am I convulsing?_

"Dammit. Ayanami! Calm down, you're safe!" Some barely-awake part of her brain recognized the voice as Maya Ibuki.

 _I'm cold. So cold…_

A hand gripped Rei's shoulder, applying just enough force to turn her head upwards. A blurry glance showed her a figure with short, dark hair.

"L-Lieutenant," Rei managed to gasp. "Have - have I been hospitalized?"

"Yes, we brought you to the AEL because - hey, hey! Don't break your ribs there!" Maya grabbed Rei's wrists, peeling her arms away from her torso. "Calm down, please! You're safe. You're going to pull through this, okay?"

"Why, wh-" Rei shook her head, clenching her jaw in an attempt to quell the muscle spasms. "Why am I sh-shaking?" She managed at last.

"You mean, shivering?" Maya sounded confused, and she stood up, apparently looking around at the shelves.

"Is th-that the… yes." She didn't usually shiver from the cold, or usually feel much at all. Sometimes she had developed tremors shortly before Dr. Akagi would change her medication, but she had never called it 'shivering.'

"You're feverish, so you feel cold." The unfocused blur in Rei's vision began to clear, and she could see the Lieutenant wearing a wry smirk. "It's, you know, pretty common for people to shiver when you feel cold."

 _It's normal? I don't understand._

"Here, kid." Maya unfolded a blanket, laying it gently over Rei's still curled-up form. Rei twitched at the unexpected contact. "You know it's gonna be okay, right? You'll pull through this."

 _Of course I will pull through this. Even if I die, I will return to full function in time._ "Y-you need not concern yourself with-"

"Hey. None of that, now." Maya crouched down so that her eye level lined up with Rei's, putting a hand on the pilot's shoulder. "I don't brook any 'tough soldier' talk when I'm on duty. You're in my care, so let me care for you."

Rei blinked as she tried to understand. However, her body was set against her: her head felt like it was stuffed with wool, and the warmth of the blanket - so oddly reminiscent of the warm LCL she'd felt around her in that strange dream - made her feel tired and lethargic. Thinking clearly for more than a few seconds took a great effort of will.

She let out an involuntary squeak as she yawned abruptly. _Yawning is a reflexive response to shallow breathing, usually from fatigue -_

"Sleepy?" Maya chuckled. "Give me a minute. I'm going to shine a light in your eyes, if that's okay."

Rei was confused. Being used to Ritsuko's medical oversight, she'd never been asked for _permission_ in this context before. After a moment's deliberation, she nodded, and dutifully stared into the LED torch as Maya directed its light at her face.

"Pupillary response looks good… what's the last thing you remember?"

Rei struggled to think back. "I… I spoke to Lieutenant Langley-Soryu on the train home from school. I think."

 _I think?! How can my memories be uncertain?_

"No amnesia, then. Good. I didn't _think_ your temperature got high enough to be at risk of brain damage, but better safe than sorry." Maya clicked the torch off. "No seizures, fever down from the danger zone, and blood pressure seems normal. Good thing you're sleepy, because all you need right now is rest."

Rei met Maya's smile with her typically blank look. "I have pilot duties to attend to…"

"Yes you do," Maya nodded. "Starting with getting back to full health. So don't even think about getting up and trying to go back to battle duty. Hyperseretonemia can be life-threatening! What you need right now is rest and recovery."

"But…"

"Do you really want to be up and walking around right now?"

"What I want does not matter, I need -"

"Do you really think you _can_ stand up and walk around right now?" Maya folded her arms. "Stand up and walk ten paces. If you can do that I'll let you go."

To her credit, Rei gave it an effort. She managed to push herself into a sitting position, allowing the blanket to slide down and reveal that she was still dressed in her now disheveled and sweat-stained school uniform. However, when she tried to move off the hospital bed, her arms gave out and she fell back.

Maya gently pulled the blanket back over her. "Sleep tight, kid," she said, a kind look on her face. "Barring an angel attack, the horrors of tomorrow will wait at least _that_ long."

 **X-X-X**


	19. A Long Look Into the Abyss

**X-X-X**

 _ **Chapter 19**_

 **X-X-X**

 _This body is 10.59 years old and its heart has beat 444,792,591 times._

"Lift your right arm above your head."

Rei complied, keeping her arm within the confines of the orange box on the floor as she did so. The computer fans on the instrument's controller whirred slightly faster.

"Good… now your left, please."

The menial task of having her AT field scanned was fairly normal to Rei. However, the task had already gone fifteen minutes longer than usual.

 _I suffered a medical emergency… perhaps she seeks to ensure my body retains its integrity._

"Now, both. Turn around slowly with your arms raised."

 _This body is 10.59 years old and its heart has beat 444,792,673 times._ Rei did as the doctor asked.

Frowning, Ritsuko tapped the screen of her computer. She appeared to be muttering to herself, but Rei couldn't make out the words.

 _What is the matter? Has she detected the defect that led to all this?_ Rei's expression was schooled, but her thoughts were a great deal less ordered. _What does she think of me…?_

 _Her body is 30.71 years old and its heart has beat 1,290,820,137 times -_

The scanner abruptly emitted a shrill string of beeping noises. Ritsuko looked up sharply, fixing Rei with a critical frown.

"What was _that,_ Rei?" She asked, quietly.

"I do not know," Rei answered, truthfully. There had been a _sensation,_ not quite entirely of the body, not quite entirely of the mind - something Rei had never experienced before. Rei blinked, and in her sight a bright orange halo flickered over the doctor's form.

Ritsuko glanced at the computer screen, then back to Rei. She, too, wore a neutral expression - but the ruthlessness in her eyes was as hard as the diamond-nanorod of an Evangelion's armor. "Whatever you just did spiked your AT field over ten animara, if only for about half a second. The ænima terminus strength of _ten_ average humans." She produced a cigarette, lighting it in one smooth motion. "Four or five notches higher and you'll trigger the internal safeties installed around NERV-HQ. You know how well _that_ will turn out for you. So, with that in mind, are you _sure_ you don't know what just happened?"

Rei was silent for almost ten full seconds. "I do not fully understand what I did," she said at length.

Lacing her fingers together, Ritsuko rested her elbows on her desk - a mannerism oddly reminiscent of Commander Ikari. "Explain what you _do_ know."

Rei straightened, her pose subconsciously correcting to stand at attention. "My attention drifted, and -"

"That's a shock in its own right," Ritsuko murmured. "Sorry, continue."

"I did something… something cerebral…" Rei struggled to explain the sensation, but then something else occurred to her. "It was reflexive. But it felt like casting the AT field when I am piloting Asherah."

Narrowing her eyes, Ritsuko tilted her head slightly. "Is that all the detail you can give me?"

"No, there is more. I count the heartbeats of my body, from the moment it was activated -"

"Yes, I remember."

"- And my attention drifted to you. In that moment I could quantify your heartbeats in the same manner," Rei finished.

Ritsuko drew back, her face a picture of surprise. " _Really,"_ she breathed. "How interesting…"

"Yes, you are thirty point seven one years old and your heart has beat one billion, two hundred and ninety million, eight hundred and twenty thousand, two hundred and fifty-one times." The computer beeped its warning again, and Ritsuko's gaze zeroed in on the display.

"Interesting… very interesting." The doctor's voice trailed off.

Rei tilted her head slightly. _This is expression, right? Expressing curiosity. Is this the right way?_ "Doctor?"

Ritsuko started, as if she'd snapped out of a daze. "Oh, I'm sorry. I believe this test is concluded, Ayanami. Despite your recent medical distress, your AT field is healthier than I've ever seen it."

 _The test is concluded._ This was familiar territory to Rei, and she nodded. "Are there changes to my medications today, doctor?" She droned.

"Oh, yes," Ritsuko replied in an odd tone. "Quite a change it is, at that."

Rei continued staring straight ahead, waiting for further clarification.

"Most of your medications are harmful to you and you're taking them for no medically valid reason. I'm taking you off them." With a few taps of the keyboard and a click of the mouse, several pieces of paper were spat out by the nearby printer. "Many of them are dangerous to stop suddenly, so I've drawn up a plan to carefully titrate the doses down in a safe manner."

Rei actually blinked at the oddity of that information. "I… have been told many times that these medications were necessary for my body's continued integrity," she said haltingly.

Ritsuko smiled, a faraway look in her eyes. "Oh, look at you, Ayanami," she said softly. "I find that red gremlin as insufferable as her mother was, but even I can't deny she's been a good influence on you… just a few months ago, you'd never have raised a question like that."

 _Another fault! Truly, I must be irreparably defective. I should have volunteered myself to be deactivated and replaced as soon as these errors began_. "I apologize. I have grown increasingly defective in recent weeks, beyond my ability to self-correct." Rei looked down, a gesture she had learned meant deference. "Should I report to the Chamber of Guf for deactivation?"

"What? No! Not at all. I'm _glad_ you're developing a greater sense of independence. And what do you mean by _defective?"_

The tiny desk-chair wheels emitted their distinctive whir of motion, but Rei didn't look up - at least, not until she felt the doctor's hand under her chin, pushing her bowed head back into an upright position.

"What do you mean by defective, Ayanami?" Ritsuko inquired again. Her tired green eyes were hard and piercing.

"I…" Rei struggled to organize her thoughts. _And that, indeed, is part of the problem…_ "In recent weeks I have grown increasingly distractible and less able to focus. It takes me longer to perform tasks, it upsets my routines-"

"Distractible? Do you mean that you catch yourself spacing out or dissociating?"

"No, this distraction has a source. But I should be disciplined enough to ignore it. Since this discipline is lacking, I must be defective."

Ritsuko dropped her hand. "A source." Her expression was unreadable.

"Yes. These distracted moments began with pilot Soryu's arrival in Japan." Rei found herself blinking erratically for a moment; _another defect -_ "She commands the complete attention of anyone in her presence, of course, but the preoccupation also appears to persist through the hours and days we spend apart."

Rei halted, looking over at Ritsuko - who had dropped the neutral expression, and was staring-wide eyed at Rei, her eyebrows raised higher than Rei had ever seen them. However, the doctor didn't speak up, so Rei continued.

"In an attempt to curtail these… distracting feelings… I increased the doses of my medication, but despite dulling the majority of my cerebral functions and requiring me to sleep longer, they did not successfully remove -"

"Wait, wait," Ritsuko interrupted, her expression shifting from _surprised_ to _aghast._ "You increased _all_ your medications? _Without telling me?!_ You're lucky it was just hyperseretonemia, and not pulmonary paralysis! You can't just _double down_ on CNS depressants and major tranquilizers - oh, what am I saying?" Ritsuk shook her head bitterly. "Even if you _did_ know that, has a risk of death ever _really_ meant anything to you? Fuck."

Rei waited silently for Ritsuko to finish. Nothing in the doctor's outburst seemed to warrant an immediate response, so after a moment she continued.

"Despite dulling the majority of my cerebral functions and requiring me to sleep longer, the increase in medication did not successfully remove the persistent distraction. I can therefore conclude I am irreparably defective, and I recommend my immediate deactivation, with a new instance to be restored from data backups made no later than-"

"Ayanami… Rei. You're shaking. Calm down, please." Rei twitched as Ritsuko's hand touched her shoulder - realizing, in that moment, how tense her posture had grown. "Why do you think this… uh, distractibility, makes you defective?"

"I must concentrate on my purpose."

"Have you failed any part of your purpose, lately?"

"I have lost attentiveness during training." Rei lowered her gaze.

"Was that before or after you cranked your medications up?"

"After."

Ritsuko chuckled, though it had a bitter edge to it. "With your doses that high I'm amazed you could stay _awake_ during training, let alone focused." She shook her head. "That was an inevitability. Brought on by an uninformed decision on your part, perhaps, but not an intrinsic fault in you."

"But -"

"Ayanami," Ritsuko said sternly, looking close into Rei's eyes. "Before you call this a 'defect,' stop and think for a moment, and answer this. Do you truly _want_ to stop thinking of Asu- err, Pilot Soryu, or -"

"Yes."

" _\- or,_ do you only feel like you _must_ stop thinking of her, for the sake of your alleged purpose?"

 _I do not discern a difference!_ Rei felt more disoriented than she had ever been in her life. Where she was accustomed to nearly unbroken serenity outside of combat, she was now hounded by confusion. Conflicting thoughts and… _feelings…_ conspired to deprive her of any kind of peace.

 _I am not supposed to feel. My purpose is too simple to be confused, and I am not supposed to grow outside its confines._

"Don't mind me, I have some work to look over." Ritsuko fished a tablet computer out of her pocket. "Feel free to take your time considering the question."

 _What would it be like, to be focused again?_ Rei tried to imagine what it would be like to have her recent stressors deleted from her mind. She knew she'd lost chunks of time from her memories before, when One had become Two, and when Two had become Three. _And surely I will again, when Three becomes Four. If I am deactivated for this defect, Four will be born without the memories of any time spent with Lieutenant Langley-Soryu. After the fact, the Commander will surely isolate Four away from any contact with the Lieutenant._

Rei felt a strange sensation in her chest at the thought - a sharp, hollow pang, as if a muscle was spasming in pain.

 _I do not want to lose that._ The realization chilled her to the core. _I should not want anything at all, but I want to hold onto this._

 _And yet - despite what Doctor Akagi said - why should it matter what I want? My purpose is not my own, and never has been._ Her thoughts shifted to those around her - Commander Ikari, Captain Katsuragi, the Pilot Corps, Lieutenant Langley-Soryu. _They do not need a distracted… girl. The Commander needs an instrument of his will. The captain needs a disciplined soldier, and the Pilot Corps likewise. The Lieutenant needs…_

A memory rose, unbidden.

" _I'm_ _glad you're alive, even if you don't give a fuck yourself. I don't want you to die. Keep that in mind next time you tell me I should leave you in the dust, yeah?"_

Rei shook her head. Ritsuko looked up from her work for a moment, but when Rei didn't show any sign of speaking, she looked back at the tablet.

 _I would not truly die. Four would live on, and the majority of my life would live on through her. But in a literal sense, I would have died… and Four's contact with Lieutenant Langley-Soryu would be severely restricted after the fact, if extant at all._

 _Surely, what she values of me would not die? Four would be no less of a perfect soldier than Three._

Ritsuko had put down the tablet and rolled her chair back over to her desk, and was now occasionally tapping the keyboard of her computer. Idly, she lifted a nearby cup of black coffee and swallowed the contents in one gulp. Rei knew that it was cold. There was little time in the Doctor's work day to pay attention to a coffee maker; her coffee was always cold.

A new thought swam to the surface of the churning waters of Rei's mind.

 _Is Lieutenant Langley-Soryu that logical? Truly? She is very… human, to a fault at times._ Rei blinked. _She would no doubt see some ephemeral value of the old me, and judge it lost._

 _Would she be wrong?_

 _Memories are sometimes illogically precious to humans, and Four would lack any of such that concerned the Lieutenant…_

The stabbing ache lanced through Rei's chest again.

 _I must stop thinking of the Lieutenant. Such is not my purpose. But I do not want to. I do not want to disappoint her so, and…_

"No."

Ritsuko's back straightened immediately, and she looked over at Rei with her eyebrows raised.

"I… do not want to cease thinking of Lieutenant Langley-Soryu. I do not want to lose these thoughts and memories."

Ritsuko smiled, and indeed, almost seemed genuinely happy. "Then you're not defective, Rei," she said simply.

"But -"

"No, no buts. That's part of being a person - no, part of being _anything_ with a mind. People only do what they want. Psychologically speaking, _everything_ you do is something you want, it just may be the case that conflicting motives come close to swaying your decisions."

Rei blinked, but didn't respond otherwise.

"If this isn't what you want, than my ethics as a doctor - ragged and ruined though they are, at this point - will not allow me to help you seek deactivation. Report yourself to the Commander if you wish; I'm sure he will be happy to oblige. But if you want to carry on living as Three, as you are now -" Ritsuko lit another cigarette and took a deep drag - "then keep it to yourself, as well as this change in medications. The Commander is a cruel man, with no respect for the freedom or well-being of others, and although there is nothing wrong with you as a person I am _certain_ he will have a problem with your independent thoughts."

Rei blinked again. "I…"

"It's up to you." Ritsuko took another drag. "Still… my unjust, truly selfish sense of self-preservation demands that I urge… no, that I _ask_ you to hide this. If the Commander deactivates you, I'll be next. And I don't have a Ritsuko Two lined up."

Rei nodded. "I… I must think further on this."

"Take all the time you need."

 **X-X-X**

 _Gone again… the fucking Witch Doctor said it wasn't going to be serious, but if that's true, where's my verdammt pilot, huh?!_

"Soryu?"

Welcoming the distraction, Asuka raised her head and fixed Hikari with a look of withering disdain.

"Err, sorry. Asuka."

"Better."

"Anyway, I just heard yesterday - Nintendo is making a new Smash game!" Hikari had stars in her eyes. "I was worried they'd leave us with Melee forever."

Asuka raised her eyebrow. "I don't know if I'm _that_ excited. Melee is basically the most perfect fighter I've ever seen; I kinda doubt they can top it." She shook her head. "Still, good to hear they're making _new_ games again."

 _Impressive that they weathered second impact at all, frankly. It's… encouraging, hearing things like this. Makes a soldier hope that the world might eventually truly recover._

"The new game's called Brawl."

"Hn. Stereotypical. Not bad, though." Asuka poked idly at her food with her fork. Her eyes seemed drawn to her own hand, and the flushed pink of the scar tissue that drew a thick line across the palm.

"Hey, Asuka. You okay?"

"Huh?" Asuka jerked her head back up, her tone defensive. "Of course. Why wouldn't I be?"

"Hmmm…" Hikari narrowed her eyes and tilted her head slightly. "You seem a little distracted, I guess? You're pretty good at hiding when something's bothering you - at least, you are when it's not something you can get angry about - but I like to think I'm your friend, yeah? I can tell when you're preoccupied."

"Are you saying I'm easy to read?!"

"Well, a large part of it is that you usually sit with Shinji," Hikari replied, embarrassed. "The rest is in the little cues. Someone who didn't know you well probably wouldn't have a clue."

 _Kinda like how I can pick out Rei's little tells, even through that stone mask of hers,_ Asuka thought, then immediately regretted it. _Ugh, what happened to hating her? She's everything I_ _should_ _hate… but I guess weathering enemy fire together builds camaraderie whether you want to or not._

 _That, or it's Stockholm syndrome. Since I sure as hell can't get away from her, as long as I pilot Eva…_

Asuka looked down, away from Hikari. "The only thing me and Shinji have in common is a uniform," she muttered. "And _Gott,_ I don't want to talk military right now."

"That's… yeah, that's fair." Hikari winced. "I know I shouldn't pry, but is it anything to do with Ayanami being out two days in a row?"

"I thought she was frequently out for no reason," Asuka deflected. "This isn't unusual, right?"

Hikari's sad expression didn't lift. "Well, yeah. But… well, whenever she was out for more than a day, she always seemed to come back bandaged, or limping, or…" she shook her head. "And that was true before you and Shinji, before the angel attacks. I worry about her."

 _Gott, what did the Commander_ _do_ _to her?! What kind of Evangelion stress-testing or surgery could…_ Asuka's enraged internal monologue trailed off as she remembered the metal implants in Rei's skin. _Well, that would certainly do it. Fuuuck. Being a soldier sucks, fighting monsters sucks. But not as much as fighting_ _for_ _monsters._

"Oh!" Hikari perked up suddenly. "I suppose I needn't have worried, then!"

Asuka whipped her head around fast enough to elicit a clicking protest from the bones in her neck. At the classroom door stood one Rei Ayanami.

 _Oh, thank fuck. She's alive. That's something, at least._

She greeted the class as quietly as Asuka would have expected, and walked over to her designated chair. As the door closed behind her, Asuka glanced into the hallway, spotting the teacher talking to a man in sunglasses and a nondescript black suit.

 _Of course it's goon detail that drops her off. Still, she looks… better. Not perfect, but a bit better…_

Though still slightly disheveled, at least to Asuka's discerning eye, Rei _did_ look marginally healthier. Less sleep-deprived and confused, if nothing else.

Asuka's first instinct was to stand up and head over to Rei's desk, but even as she felt herself tense to do so, the teacher walked into the room.

 _Dammit. Missed my shot._ The teacher began his usual droning, and Asuka rolled her eyes. _Gonna be a long afternoon…_

 **X-X-X**

"I didn't think I'd find you outside of your lab. Sometimes it seems like you're down there twenty-four seven."

Ritsuko felt herself tense, although she didn't look away from the tower terminal.

"I come up here to… well, I always _tell_ myself it's to try and rework the hardware drivers of the signal interpreter to see if I can increase the effective range of its AT detection." She sucked a cloud of smoke from the cigarette dangling carelessly from her lips. "It's really more to clear my head. Even I can't live and work in a cave _all_ the time."

"I'm surprised." The other woman's voice was flat. "I thought monsters loved caves."

Ritsuko winced, finally turning her head to look at Misato. Standing in the doorway of the safety cage, the light of the noonday sky made the captain's figure into a menacing silhouette.

"Only most of the time." Ritsuko pulled her gaze back to the terminal, and tried to tell herself it wasn't because she was afraid to look Misato in the eye. "Sometimes even us monsters want to see the light."

"Oh? Not even going to try denying it?"

Ritsuko coughed as she tried to laugh through a lungful of smoke. "My sins amount to enough already, without lying to your face and insulting your intelligence too." Taking the nearly-dead cigarette end from her mouth, she tossed it through the chainlink weave of the safety cage. "I presume you came with questions? I'll admit, I'm surprised you let the little devil go first."

"Don't talk about Lieutenant Soryu like that." Misato's tone was harsh. "And I only have one question."

Ritsuko lit another cigarette. "Hit me."

"What happened to the woman I fell in love with?" Misato took a step into the safety cage, and the shifting light brought an angry face into view. "Because she sure as hell isn't sitting in front of me right now."

To her credit, Ritsuko managed to meet Misato's eye for almost two full seconds, even though the question felt like a punch in the teeth. Then she looked away again, grabbing the cigarette from her mouth and crushing it in her hand. The ember hissed as it died.

"Good question. I'll have to let you know, when I find the answer." Her tablet computer buzzed a notification from her lower lab coat pocket, but she ignored it.

"That's all you can say?!" Misato took another step forward, her fists clenching, and Ritsuko cringed.

"What, you think that was a joke? I wish there _had_ been a decisive step into the dark, but -" Ritsuko shook her head. "There really wasn't. Just darker and darker shades of grey. I _want_ to tell you the day it happened, but - no one becomes a monster in just a day."

"Poisoning a child sure seems like a pretty decisive step!"

Ritsuko put on a plastic grin. "Decisive enough to make me realize how far I'd walked." She pulled out another cigarette, wincing as she realized she'd burned her hand. "But I was already a monster by then."

"Did you take her off… _whatever_ it was that hurt her?"

 _She would have been fine if she hadn't decided to overdose out of the blue,_ said a clinical voice in the back of Ritsuko's mind. She ignored it. A defensive statement would only make Misato angrier. "Interacting seretonergics, and yes. Well, instructed her how to safely taper them off, at least."

"Oh? Really?" Misato cocked her head. "What happened to ' _the Commander would kill me if I went against his orders,'_ hmm?"

"It's not like I immediately informed the Commander or anything. That's Rei's choice to make now. I damn near killed _her;_ I'd say turnabout is fair play." Misato looked taken aback, so Ritsuko decided to keep speaking. "If, in the near future, I disappear suddenly and without warning… I've hidden a dead drop with everything important in it. You'll find it if you need it."

"And why should I trust anything you say?" Misato's tone softened somewhat, though her glare was still cutting. Ritsuko could only hope it was the mention of her potentially impending death that had softened it.

"By my track record, you clearly should _not_ trust anything I say. I can only hold out foolish hope. But I _do_ have your back regarding Kaji and Mari's 'hobby,' whatever else comes about." Realizing she'd already smoked her cigarette down to a stub, Ritsuko ground out the ember and tossed it away. "If this does, indeed, turn out to be the last time you ever speak to me… well. Can you at least believe me when I say, I wish our goodbye had been under very different circumstances?"

Misato's eyes narrowed. She opened her mouth as if to speak - but then she merely clenched her teeth, turning and storming out of the safety cage without a word.

Ritsuko looked after her for a moment, contemplating the rust patterns on the catwalk railing just outside the cage door. Then she looked back to the reams of computer code crawling across the tower console screen as it happily ticked away at its debug sequence.

 _Well, that all went about as well as I expected it to, really…_

She reached into her lab coat pocket, but the packet contained only foil and scraps of loose tobacco. Cursing under her breath, she withdrew the empty pack and threw it as hard as she could out the cage doorway.

 _Smoking two packs a day - no, three, it seems now - and driving away lovers because of your work… is there any way in which you_ _don't_ _take after your mother, Ritsuko?_

A recent memory popped into her head, and she reached into her lower pocket, retrieving her tablet.

 **[Lt. Ibuki Maya]:** _The Genesis Dogma radiolab staff seem to be stuck on the last leg of the analysis from that strange AT phenomenon the pilots managed to generate. The lead analyst says he needs either ten more technicians on every shift for the next few weeks, or he needs your eyes on the data for a few days._

 **[Lt. Ibuki Maya]:** _I'm not going to go-between you two again, by the way. I know he's… difficult, but I don't have the energy to deal with that for you_ _all_ _the time._

"At least that prick can admit he's not the smartest scientist at NERV," Ritsuko murmured to herself, standing from the computer chair. "Well, back to work."

 **X-X-X**


End file.
